the answer lies in your title.. well kind of, the word is "China". Have you ever wondered why the English name for the Middle Kingdom is China, becos it held secrets to porcelain making & nobody in the West back than could work out how it was made. It was so revered that they even named the country China. It was only later on that European porcelain makers discovered the secrets of how Chinese porcelains were made but by then, the Europeans discovery of "glass" & it's uses like in test tubes, light bulbs etc. lead to a revolutionary leap for them in terms of Science & Industry. Photography itself owed much to glass as without it, the very first glass plate negatives would not have happened.