Luxury, brilliance, wealth – these are the associations that diamonds evoke in most people. However, the scope of this mineral goes far beyond the manufacture of jewelry.
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Most people are sure that diamonds on Earth are negligible, but despite the difficulty of mining, these stones are not uncommon.
Large companies sell diamonds in limited quantities, artificially inflating prices. Because of this approach, the stones do not lose their value for decades. However, 80% of the world’s mined diamonds are simply not suitable for use in jewelry. In jewelry, they can only be used following cutting. The bulk of diamonds is used in industry: mechanical engineering, manufacturing of medical devices.
It is believed that there is no harder mineral on the planet
Diamond is also excellent for polishing and grinding various materials. In 2005, Natalya Dubrovinskaya, together with colleagues from a German university, created a stone in the course of one experiment, which they called hyperdiamond. Its strength exceeds that of diamond by 11%. However, since the stone was not natural, but synthetic, the diamond continued to take the place of the hardest mineral of natural origin.
Today, artificial diamonds practically do not differ from the original ones.
Moreover, even seasoned specialists cannot always distinguish them from each other by sight. Modern mass production allows you to supply the market with very cheap stones that are in demand.
African dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa’s ‘unique’ diamond was a low-grade technical diamond
The love for diamonds so captivated people that in 1977 Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who proclaimed himself an African emperor, turned to Albert Joly to provide him with a unique gem. Joly did not have the money for such a request, but he was obliged to comply with the order. Taking a low-grade black fine-grained diamond, he processed it and inserted it into a ring intended for the leader of the Central African Empire. It is noteworthy that the stone itself resembled the African continent in shape, which Bokass really liked. The cost of such jewelry did not exceed $500, but the emperor was assured that the “unique diamond” was worth more than $500,000.
The largest diamond in the world is in space
In 2004, astrophysicists discovered a whole, once extinguished, diamond star, which is located at a distance of 50 light years from Earth, and its diameter is 4000 km. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” following the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles.
Photo source: freepik.com, Legion-media
