Krumlink

Graphite and diamond are made of carbon (duh, but wait I am getting to a point), and graphite has carbon atoms are in hexagonal shapes, stacked vertically. Carbon in diamonds can be connected in pyramidal structures, or in complex interconnected structures.

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MechTronics

World of Warcraft is a disease

Hero999

That's right Sceadwian it's the thought that counts, if you find a nice enough looking stone and shape it so it looks cool, then she should be happy with it even if it didn't cost much.

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dknguyen

DId you get this in writing?

"Some thought" = "Some effort" = Equivelant of about 6 months of work

Or you could mine your own copper and use it to forge your own extremely effort and time-consuming ring.

I agree though. Some girls think that the more expensive a ring is, the more you love her which is silly. Something practical like a downpayment on a house is much more useful.

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MacFeegle

Some people apparently want to use man made diamonds to stop the creation open pit mines used to dig up natural diamonds. It will be interesting to see it that switch actually happens.

Glyph

Interesting tid-bit: Techically diamonds are NOT forever, they exist as a metastable state of carbon that will decay into graphite if given enough time. Takes some millions to billions of years but that beautiful diamond rock will eventually become a hunk graphite.... eventually...

As for some women liking expensive jewellery rather than well-thought of gifts here's a colorful story:

One time i spent 8 months of my free time creating my own synthetic sapphire. Even concocted a special inert atmosphere chamber to precisely control what impurities got in so i could control the color. Once i got the hunk of sapphire i smashed it and ground/buffed/polished down the pieces to get several sapphire gems.

I electroformed an intricate copper box and gold plated it. Then I set the sapphire stones into the box. I installed an MP3 player circuit into a hidden compartment inside the box. In the top of the box I installed a solar panel but placed a piece of faceted glass over the panel so that you could not distinguish the electrodes of panel and thus not realized it was a solar panel but still allowing the solar panel to collect light. This panel charged and powered the mp3 player. Upon opening the player the music would play.

Essentially a high-tech music box. Albeit one with gold plating and artificial gems.

Gave it to my girlfriend as an anniversary gift.

Then she dumped me saying i was so cheap to give her a gold-plated fake instead of an actual gold box with real gems that i didn't deserve her.

I stopped dating after that.

Hero999

I don't believe that, diomond seems pretty stable to me, it can stand pretty high temperatures without decaying into graphite so I can't see how this process will happen at room temperature even over billiions of years. The only way I can see this happening is if the diomond is exposed to high energy gamma rays or is composed of radioactive carbon but this would be the same with any substance.

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dknguyen

Makes you wonder. What's better? To know what is? Or what could have been?

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Mikebits

I don't get it. Is that like one of those sayings like; better to have loved than to never haved loved at all, sorta of things???

To me, a girl that does not appreciate a gift from the heart is not a keeper, and you are lucky she dumped you. Imagine if you had to dump her, you would have to have some crumby speech all memorized like, well babe, it is not you, I just need to find myself, or some crap like that, and what a pain that would be...

dknguyen

lol. "It's not you, it's me. Wait a second...no, it's you. Yeah it's definately you."

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Mikebits

Oh, I see, you have given the speech. lol

dknguyen

You know, I've always been saved the trouble. I've been told by friends I'm somewhat blinded after I've made up my mind- but I do have a very long memory.

i kinda look forward to the day when I get to dish it out to someone who deserves it. I'm an extreme believer in an eye for an eye. THe better people who know me says it's a problem.

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Mikebits

Well, lets just hope the next one is Mr. Right. When you do find that person, you will know. You might find yourself studying botany because your partner does, or perhaps you become a NASCAR fan, just because your partner likes it. When this happens, you have found the right guy, and will never need the speech

dknguyen

*Mrs*. I'm a guy! What self-absorbed person would have a perfect self-portrait as their avatar? Guys are more sane than girls anyways...

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Mikebits

Well in that case. Insert Mrs. for Mr. Same holds true.

Of course, any chance of me asking you to my prom is off now. lol

Glyph

Diamonds do not withstand high temperatures for very long. In fact, scientists (or alchemists, as this was very long ago...) determined the connection between carbon and diamond when they heated diamonds to 6000 degrees using giant magnifying lenses (i'm not joking). The diamonds burned! at that temperature the conversion was fast enough to ignite the graphite formed and sustain a flame for several minutes. Further, they tested the gas produced and determined it was indeed carbon dioxide, the same gas from burning graphite.

Diamonds are in a "metastable" state. Meaning they are unstable thermodynamically but are kinetically stable since the conversion is so slow. At room temperature they are essentially stable because they are "frozen" into that state. A good analogy is freezing food so it lasts longer. But the food will not last forever and neither will the diamond. The decay is accelerated at higher temperatures for both.

Most (80%) real diamonds that come out of the ground are not gem quality. Some of these are because the decay has already progressed too far and if you place these dull grey to black diamonds under a microscope you'll see tiny black specks of graphite, essntially "crystalizing" out of the diamond since the room temperature and pressure favor that state. This took millions of years to occur before we humans found it but it is happening.

Some types of artificial diamond are actually natural low-grade decaying diamonds that have been reversed by placing them in the same machine that makes totally artificial diamonds. The graphite specks now recrystalize into the diamond lattice because the conditions in the machine resemble the extreme temperature and pressure of the earth where the diamond state is more favorable over the graphite state.

If you still think i'm full of it, here are some links that mention the stability of diamonds

Diamonds and Burning

BDG Diamonds

Diamond - Molecule of the Month

Singapore Science Centre: ScienceNet|Physical Sciences|Physical/ Theoretical Chemistry

Specks in Diamonds

Material properties of diamond - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This phase diagram shows very clearly that at atmospheric pressure, diamond is not permanently stable at any temperature.

Diamond and graphite properties


Granted, internet sources are not the most reliable/accurate sources of information. So i reccomend you look up some geology textbooks, in particular: geochemistry. they all say that diamonds are unstable at atmospheric pressure.