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Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

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Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#101

Post by ericfranklin »

jpmattia wrote: post #77

> His lab can tell the difference — they use microscopes and other instruments to look for subtle features that reveal a diamond's origin. Wild guess as to why anyone can tell the difference: Lab-grown diamonds are more perfect than mined ones. It's probably pretty trivial to introduce impurities to degrade the color, or change the deposition temperature in order to create faults in the lattice. Hell, throw in a micr…

Diamond growers try their best to keep out impurities and imperfections. Elemental impurities do add color (nitrogen=yellow, boron=blue), same as mined diamonds, and faults and inclusions do naturally happen in the process. However, at an atomic level, they are different than inclusions and imperfections in mined diamonds.

As a producer, I don't see any incentive to make them imperfect on purpose, yet still distinguishable from mined diamonds. All larger diamonds intended for gemstones come with independent grading reports, which will still identify it as grown regardless of presence or lack of impurities and imperfections.

While not technically correct, some of the advanced detection equipment can be thought of like looking at growth rings on a tree. You (probably) can't replicate the growth rings of a 200 year old tree in a 5 year old tree, yet both are perfectly valid sources of wood (sustainability, etc. aside).

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#102

Post by Grishnakh »

nwellinghoff wrote: post #82
curun1r wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the purveyors of diamonds, and you could argue jewelry in general, have positioned themselves as proxies for love and sex. Those are the things we value and the reasons we spend money, but we're not allowed, either by societal convention or law, to spend money on them directly. But we're allowed to spend exorbitant amounts of money on a glittery status symbols that serves as a measure of devotion. It's not th…

Very wise. It's going to be up to the women to tell their men they don't want this crap. At the end of the day us men are just going to get you what you want to make you happy.

Or, you could simply stop chasing after shallow, selfish women who demand these things. Trust me, you'll be a lot happier if you avoid them and look instead for a woman you can respect (because personally, I can't respect a woman who has this mentality). Marrying someone you don't respect is not a recipe for long-term happiness.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#103

Post by Grishnakh »

lordnacho wrote: post #68
joering2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once I learnt more about De Beers, I'm wondering if there is any other product that one could pull of such stunt and make themselves billionaires? Step one - find a rare mineral that at this point has value close to zero. It is rare but worthless. Step two - obtain monopoly on mining it or control it as much as you can (buy spots with dense occurrence, etc) Step three - throw money at important and powerful people (s…

> Once I learnt more about De Beers, I'm wondering if there is any other product that one could pull of such stunt and make themselves billionaires? Various sports. Formula One, for instance, is the epitome of racing despite there being plenty of other ways to race cars. Bottled water. Competes with a spout that everyone has several of in their home, yet people still pay up for it.

Bottled water tastes better than tap water; that's why people buy it. Tap water tastes terrible in most localities. A cheaper alternative is RO water which you can buy from dispensers and fill 3 or 5-gallon bottles with cheaply.

Formula One doesn't require consumers to spend anything directly; all the money appears to be in the advertising. Also, F1 is only the epitome of racing in Europe. In the US, most people don't even know what it is, and NASCAR is the epitome of racing. And there too, most of the money comes from advertising.

I think you need a better example of something that's so entirely unnecessary and horrifically overpriced yet so many consumers have been brainwashed into purchasing. I honestly can't think of anything, not even Apple products (ducks). I mean, there's plenty of examples of stupid, overpriced, trendy products (like Beats headphones, Nike Air shoes, various other fashion trends), but none of them come close to comparing in terms of longevity and market penetration. Most fashion trends only affect younger people anyway (esp. teenagers), and only last for a few years at most, and they aren't so massively overpriced or involve an international cartel and horrible environmental and human rights practices. The scope and scale of the diamond scam is simply unprecedented I think.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#104

Post by undersuit »

grondilu wrote: post #49

The largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it? Will it ever be synthetic and if so when?

>The largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it?

It's most definitely a natural diamond, and it's also most definitely undiscovered in some incredibly rich diamond deposit.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#105

Post by superchink »

joering2 wrote: post #37
inimino wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already is, it's called De Beers. It's exactly because of the artificially inflated price that the mining practices are damaging.

Once I learnt more about De Beers, I'm wondering if there is any other product that one could pull of such stunt and make themselves billionaires? Step one - find a rare mineral that at this point has value close to zero. It is rare but worthless. Step two - obtain monopoly on mining it or control it as much as you can (buy spots with dense occurrence, etc) Step three - throw money at important and powerful people (s…

Not sure if anyone will appreciate this, but if you haven't seen it, it's oddly relevant to your comment:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/acaxis/key-and-peele-the-heist

It's a skit by Key & Peele describing a genius plan for a bank heist. I won't ruin the punchline by going any further.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#106

Post by ars »

DennisP wrote: post #62
ars wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that name because they do NOT run on nuclear waste - you have to make nuclear material specially for them. Ordinary waste from a power plant will not work! Anyway I think they use carbon for its electrical properties, not the strength.

They're planning to use carbon-14 from the graphite moderators of nuclear reactors. The U.K. has 95,000 tons of them in storage. http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-turning-nuclear-w...

Carbon-14 is not the type of nuclear waste anyone is worried about. It's barely radioactive, with a long half life and very low decay energy. Disposing of it doesn't pose any issues because it is unable to make anything else radioactive.

You want to make a long lasting low power nuclear battery? Go for it. But don't try to trick people into thinking you are doing anything about nuclear waste.

The nuclear waste that causes problems is the type with neutron decay that is able to activate nearby elements. That is tricky to dispose of, and difficult to store.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#107

Post by lfowles »

ericfranklin wrote: post #90
lfowles wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are other lab grown gemstones made with roughly the same HPHT process? I ended up getting a diamond from Gemesis for my wife years ago, this is a very fascinating topic for us.

The core science of diamond growth inside an HPHT cell is essentially the same (a diamond seed, heat, pressure and graphite). There are a lot of variations in the composition of the cell though, which can control color (brown, orange, yellow, blue, colorless, near colorless), as well as overall quality, quantity and size of the diamond. Outside of the growth cell, the machine and environment also influence growth. Te…

I appreciate the info, but I was actually thinking of other gem stones with my question (amethyst, etc)

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#108

Post by DennisP »

ars wrote: post #106
DennisP wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're planning to use carbon-14 from the graphite moderators of nuclear reactors. The U.K. has 95,000 tons of them in storage. http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-turning-nuclear-w...

Carbon-14 is not the type of nuclear waste anyone is worried about. It's barely radioactive, with a long half life and very low decay energy. Disposing of it doesn't pose any issues because it is unable to make anything else radioactive. You want to make a long lasting low power nuclear battery? Go for it. But don't try to trick people into thinking you are doing anything about nuclear waste. The nuclear waste that c…

You didn't specify whether it was waste anyone worries about. You claimed the material has to be made specially for these batteries. That's not the case, it's literally a radioactive waste material from nuclear reactors.

According to the article I linked, it does need to be safely stored, since it's dangerous to touch or ingest, and it needs that storage for a long period of time.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#110

Post by ebalit »

vezycash wrote: post #53

Let's give Moissanite a new catchy, less complex name. Else, it will remain unknown. I propose the name Moon Stone. Star fire would have been great but it'll be confused with Sapphire. See ffg for effect of company name pronunciability on market share, stock price, brand value... http://m.pnas.org/content/103/24/9369.full http://russelljame.com/Fluency_JFE_2013.pdf

We could call it "Pierre de Moissan".
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