Silicon Dioxide is the Oxide of Silicon, a very stable dielectric insulator used widely by the Semiconductor industry, also referred to as (pure) Quartz, or more commonly, (impure) Glass.

Silicate is the term used for the Silicon component of the rocks and crust of the Planet Earth.

Silicon is easily purified, and can be grown into large crystalline boules, which can then be cut into wafers, etched via Optical lithography, and then processed via ion inplantation and diffusion, metallized via vapor deposition and Oxidized into insulating Silicon Dioxide, into the complex transistor circuit patterns that make the integrated circuits, the personal computers, the Internet, and thus this Website, possible.

Silicon Dioxide is also the primary component of Glass and Quartz, making possible relatively inert containers, windows and mirrors, from which we can view the World and the Universe, from the relative comfort and safety of our Save the Earth - Develop Spaces and Closed Ecological Life Support Systems.