Diamonds will burn, just like coal. Also, at surface of the earth pressure, diamond is (by free-energy calc) the less stable state of carbon, and over (geologic) time diamond will trend to graphite/coal. Schroeder's "Thermal Physics" text talks about this for a few pages.
A friend of mine has a wedding band with a tiny "imperfection" in the stone - a streak of graphite that you can see with a hand-lens. It makes the stone less valuable, but frankly its more interesting than your standard hunk of glitter. On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 8:19 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) <[email protected]>wrote: > Diamonds may be almost forever, > > But I would think that fused silica would work almost as well, and is > substantially less expensive. > > If you want something exotic, how about ion implantation of Cr+ or Ti+ ions > into alumina > > > > Jim Lux > +1(818)354-2075 > > *From:* Peter St. John [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 02, 2010 5:50 PM > *To:* Robert G. Brown > *Cc:* Lux, Jim (337C); [email protected] > > *Subject:* Re: [Beowulf] Re: Interesting > > > > deBeers laser-engraves serial numbers onto their (natural) diamonds (to > counter the increasing gem quality of artificial diamonds made by, say, > chemical vapor deposition). So how about laser engraving data onto cheap > chemical vapor deposition thin diamond slices? (One of the ideas had been to > make microelectronics substrates from diamond this way, since diamond > conducts heat better than silicon). > Peter > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nathan Moore Associate Professor, Physics Winona State University - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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