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De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

money.cnn.com

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Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#71

Post by ISL »

fgonzag wrote: post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real.

Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion than diamond. SiC has a greater index of refraction, which improves the properties of total-internal-reflection as well! (Edit: It is also birefringent, which does require care when choosing a cut, size, and setting)

Cubic zirconia, too, can be stunning. Order a handful of 10-15mm stones and see for yourself. Or, for a little more money, synthetic rubies and sapphires can transform how you think about nature (they're the same crystal, except for differing defects). The real beauty of many stones is in the cut, not the base material. Diamond absolutely has its place, but it is but one in a spectrum of really cool offerings.

It is the rarity of materials that give them cachet, but the physical properties that make them beautiful. Platinum is a boring metal, visually, difficult to distinguish by eye from steels, aluminum, and titanium. The bloom of the commonest flower is far prettier, but we barely notice because they seem so commonplace and ephemeral.

Every one of these materials was born in the heart of a star or in the heat of an astrophysical cataclysm, each just as natural as the next.

Disclaimer/Caution: I've lost (so far) large fractions of small amounts of money betting long on SiC as a business venture.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#72

Post by colanderman »

on_and_off wrote: post #21
fgonzag wrote: post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

Well, their entire business model depends on persuading their clients that natural diamonds are a rarity and better than human-created ones. So I don't really expect them to offer a non biased view here, even though their audacity is astounding.

Yep. I've seen lots of marketing spam on my elevator's "Captivate" box "educating" viewers on colored diamonds and how "natural" impurities make them that way. Very obvious ploy to increase the desirability of mined diamonds.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#73

Post by bmpafa »

ISL wrote: post #31
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

Furthermore, at room temperature, diamond is not forever. Graphite is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_carbon

If I ever decide to propose to someone, I'm citing you on this point.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#74

Post by remarkEon »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

I think this theme was first explored in depth in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Having a "real" animal was a status symbol.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#75

Post by propogandist »

fgonzag wrote: post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

The slogan "a diamond is forever" is one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time. It encourages people to voluntarily limit circulation of a rock that's mined by the tonnes, whose supply is carefully controlled to keep profits high. The links they've made with the slogan to love also helps keep the money flowing.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#76

Post by cpitman »

jseliger wrote: post #27
xur17 wrote: post #3

Are there any perceptible differences between these and 'natural' diamonds?

Does anyone remember the bunch of PR around Diamond Foundry? https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown... was on HN. I've seen their diamonds and they seem quite nice, from the naked eye, to me. Their direct-to-consumer company is here: https://vraiandoro.com/ and as far as I can tell, their diamonds look nice and like other diamonds, at least from the outside.

Are diamond foundry's prices an accurate idea of the cost to manufacture lab diamonds? I was surprised by what seem like only slight discounts over natural diamonds.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#77

Post by Izkata »

vidarh wrote: post #41
digi_owl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall that Deep Space 9 touched in this in various ways during its run. Keep in mind that it was the first series that was fully made without Roddenberry input.

TNG, Voyager and Deep Space 9 all at various points made an issue of how the replicated food was not quite the same, without really trying to explain why (a lot of the issues with our mass produced food is exactly that: it's been modified to suit mass production, transport and storage, and often to be cost reduced as well; you'd expect most of those issues to disappear once you're using a replicator). But you're prob…

> TNG, Voyager and Deep Space 9 all at various points made an issue of how the replicated food was not quite the same, without really trying to explain why

I believe there's a good hint when you combine some stuff from across TNG/DS9/VOY: Replicator patterns are relatively low-resolution for storage.

They only go to the molecular level, not the subatomic/quantum level [0], and even then occasionally have issues [1]. And even if you had a high-quality pattern stored, the replicators themselves are built around that low quality, hence why the genitronic replicator was needed for Worf's spine [2].

Transporters are built on the same technology, but work at the much higher resolution necessary to break down/rebuild a person. However, the amount of memory needed for that is insane [3], hence the specially-designed pattern buffers, which under normal circumstances degrade very quickly [4].

[0] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_Fire_(episode)

[1] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Enemy_(episode)

[2] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ethics_(episode)

[3] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Our_Man_Bashir_(episode)

[4] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Relics_(episode)

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#78

Post by babblingdweeb »

xur17 wrote: post #3

Are there any perceptible differences between these and 'natural' diamonds?

In my experience: They tend to be clearer, "brighter"(more white), and more "brilliant" (reflectivity) than natural diamonds. One of the best ways to tell? They reflect more of a distinct rainbow vs. natural diamond.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#79

Post by benjaminl »

brandonjm wrote: post #40
asdsa5325 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"De Beers said the logo won't be visible to the naked eye"

I think what they is saying is that a jeweller could get synthetic diamonds from another source for the same or less than Lightbox's marked diamonds and on-sell them as real. Only the original jeweller would know they aren't real, especially if the manufacturer can introduce random impurities.

What do you mean by "aren't real". In what way is a manufactured diamonds not real?

My understanding is that they are in every respect indistinguishable except for perhaps being too perfect under magnification.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#80

Post by paulie_a »

Hermel wrote: post #70

What you are all not getting is that a diamond is not about its chemical properties, but about economic signalling. Just like artificial fur could not replace natural fur, man-made diamonds will never be the luxury item mined diamonds are today. Diamonds, just like gold, are not valuable because of their physical properties, but because they are rare. If someone invented a way to produce arbitrary amounts of gold at…

But they are not actually that rare. It's simply a controlled supply by a cartel losing its grip.
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