Using an effective potential method, a replica formulism is set up for describing supercooled liquids near their glass transition. The resulting potential is equivalent to that for an Ising spin glass in a magnetic field. Results taken from the droplet picture of spin glasses are then used to provide an explanation of the main features of fragile glass phenomenology and to argue that there will be no genuine glass transition in three dimensional systems. Numerical data will be presented which indicates that the lengthscales in real glasses are not sufficiently large for “universal” behaviour to emerge.

School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester