Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we
Speaker 2: are heading into the vault for an older stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind. This one originally aired January twenty third,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, and it's part three of our series
Speaker 2: on the diamond Let's go.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with
Speaker 2: part three in our series on Diamonds. Now, if you
Speaker 2: haven't heard parts one and two, you might want to
Speaker 2: regress through time listen to those first. But there's a
Speaker 2: no strict continuity to preserve in this series, so if
Speaker 2: you'd rather just listen to this one first, that's fine too.
Speaker 2: Brief recap of the previous episode it's in part one.
Speaker 2: We talked mainly about the idea that first got me
Speaker 2: interested in covering diamonds, which is the question of whether diamonds,
Speaker 2: especially in the form of crushed up diamond powder, are poisonous.
Speaker 2: This has long been a belief present in multiple cultures
Speaker 2: that shattered diamonds or diamond powder are lethal if swallowed,
Speaker 2: and we talked about some weird and fascinating stories of
Speaker 2: attempted diamond poisonings from history. We looked at the question
Speaker 2: of whether diamonds are actually poisonous or not. The answer
Speaker 2: we landed on was probably not, and at least one
Speaker 2: major author from modern times on the subject downplayed this
Speaker 2: as a myth with no evidence behind it. But we've
Speaker 2: also never found really strong evidence that diamond powder is safe,
Speaker 2: so personally, I'm still saying probably better not.
Speaker 4: To ingest it.
Speaker 2: In part two of the series, we talked about how
Speaker 2: diamonds form and how they're brought to the surface. We
Speaker 2: talked about some of the physics properties of diamonds, such
Speaker 2: as the fact that they are the hardest naturally occurring
Speaker 2: material on Earth, and how the property of hardness differs
Speaker 2: from other properties like toughness, leading to the strange fact
Speaker 2: that you generally can't scratch or cut a diamond with
Speaker 2: anything other than another diamond, yet you can shatter a
Speaker 2: diamond with a regular steel hammer. We also talked about
Speaker 2: some wonderful legends of diamonds, including the legendary Valley of
Speaker 2: jewels associated with the stories of figures like Sinbad and
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great, as well as some of the significance
Speaker 2: of diamonds in Hindu iconography. And today we're back to
Speaker 2: talk about diamonds once again.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, what's our first stop on the diamond
Speaker 1: express here, Joe.
Speaker 2: Well, I got interested in a specific question about diamonds
Speaker 2: from the starting point of a scene, a movie scene
Speaker 2: you talked about in part two, I think, which is
Speaker 2: a scene in Superman three where Christopher as Superman picks
Speaker 2: up a piece of coal. I think he's actually like
Speaker 2: standing at a coal mine. He picks up a piece
Speaker 2: of coal and then crushes it into a diamond in
Speaker 2: his fist.
Speaker 1: Completely cut, just already beautiful, ready to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and huge, by the way.
Speaker 2: But this connects to something that, strangely is a one
Speaker 2: of these well known facts that may well not be
Speaker 2: a fact, and that well known nonfactual fact is that
Speaker 2: diamonds are generally formed in the ground out of coal.
Speaker 2: I have encountered a number of sources arguing that this is,
Speaker 2: for the most part not the case, that diamonds are
Speaker 2: generally not formed from coal, though this may be less
Speaker 2: of a settled question than it first appears.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We might examine that question in more depth if we
Speaker 2: happen to come back in another episode and talk about
Speaker 2: diamonds some more. But this got me thinking about comparisons
Speaker 2: between diamonds and coal. There are reasons that it would
Speaker 2: make sense to assume diamonds are just a sort of
Speaker 2: continuation of the coal forming process. So diamonds are made
Speaker 2: of pure carbon, and coal is made of carbon. Coal
Speaker 2: forms deep underground, diamonds form deep underground. It just seems
Speaker 2: natural to think that you start with ancient plant matter
Speaker 2: or organic matter of some kind, probably decaying plant matter,
Speaker 2: and some kind of ancient swamp. It gets buried, It
Speaker 2: first turns into peat, and then turns into coal, and
Speaker 2: then given enough time and pressure, it turns into a diamond. Now,
Speaker 2: for the most part, it seems like this probably isn't
Speaker 2: the case. Most diamonds seem to be older than most
Speaker 2: coal and formed deeper down in the Earth's mantle then
Speaker 2: you would normally find deposits of coal. But there are
Speaker 2: these obvious physical similarities that they are both chunks of
Speaker 2: carbon that come out of the earth. But a difference
Speaker 2: to point out is that while diamonds are pretty close
Speaker 2: to pure elemental carbon, well over ninety nine percent carbon
Speaker 2: by mass, coal has a lot of different stuff in it.
Speaker 2: The main constituent of coal is usually carbon, but its
Speaker 2: purity is more variable in the range of like forty
Speaker 2: to ninety percent carbon, with other major elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
Speaker 2: and sulfur making up the rest of the mass. But anyways,
Speaker 2: since you know the main thing people do with coal
Speaker 2: is burn it, it raised the question can you burn
Speaker 2: a diamond?
Speaker 1: I mean, as we've discussed, it would seem to just
Speaker 1: run counter to, if nothing else, the idea of the diamond.
Speaker 4: Right, it's indestructible. Right.
Speaker 2: The Greek and Latin word used for the diamond is adamas,
Speaker 2: meaning unbreakable, indestructible. Well, I found this question addressed directly
Speaker 2: in several sources. One that I want to cite is
Speaker 2: an excellent blog post from twenty fourteen by a West
Speaker 2: Texas A and M professor of physics named Christopher S.
Speaker 2: Baird and so to start with a direct answer to
Speaker 2: the question and then explained from there. Yes, diamonds are
Speaker 2: indeed a carbon fuel source, and they can in fact
Speaker 2: be burned, but they don't burn as easily as coal.
Speaker 2: So let's expand on that a bit. Fire or combustion,
Speaker 2: as we've talked about on the show before, is a
Speaker 2: rapid reaction in which the molecules of a fuel source
Speaker 2: in the presence of heat, rapidly combined with oxygen, producing
Speaker 2: additional heat and light in the process. So in order
Speaker 2: to have fire, it's commonly said that you need three ingredients.
Speaker 2: We know the equation now right, it's fuel, oxygen, and heat,
Speaker 2: and you can prevent or extinguish a fire by robbing
Speaker 2: it of any of these necessary ingredients. Now that fuel
Speaker 2: can be a number of different things. We know, for example,
Speaker 2: that pure hydrogen gas is flammable. It burns. But Baird
Speaker 2: mentions in his blog posts that the most common form
Speaker 2: of combustion that we encounter in the world world is
Speaker 2: carbon combustion. So most of the fuel sources we burn
Speaker 2: in day to day life are carbon based fuel sources.
Speaker 2: That means carbon is the fuel in the fire equation.
Speaker 2: So you get a carbon based substance, you get it
Speaker 2: hot enough in the presence of oxygen, and the carbon
Speaker 2: atoms will start to break their bonds with one another,
Speaker 2: and with atoms of other elements in the material to
Speaker 2: instead form bonds with oxygen from the air, and this
Speaker 2: combination of carbon and oxygen is the reason that the
Speaker 2: main byproducts of burning carbon based fuels are carbon oxygen
Speaker 2: molecules like carbon dioxide CO two and carbon monoxide coo.
Speaker 2: So one different way to think of building a fire, say,
Speaker 2: is making carbon dioxide. That is what the biggest part
Speaker 2: of what this reaction is doing.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: In fuel sources that have other substances in addition to carbon,
Speaker 2: there are additional byproducts. For example, fossil fuels that also
Speaker 2: have hydrogen content will also produce the byproduct of water
Speaker 2: vapor as the hydrogen reacts with oxygen to form H
Speaker 2: two oz. But to come back specifically to carbon burning,
Speaker 2: to carbon combustion, the way it works is that again
Speaker 2: you have to get a carbon fuel source up to
Speaker 2: a certain temperature for the reaction with oxygen to start.
Speaker 2: That's the ignition temperature. But fortunately you don't have to
Speaker 2: keep applying external heat because combustion is what's known as
Speaker 2: an exothermic process. The chemical reaction releases its own heat,
Speaker 2: generally more heat than you put in to begin with,
Speaker 2: and this heat that's released causes more carbon bonds to
Speaker 2: break and allows more carbon to combine with oxygen, and
Speaker 2: so on and so on until one of the ingredients
Speaker 2: in the fire equation is depleted or removed. But this
Speaker 2: self sustaining exothermic property is the main reason carbon combustion
Speaker 2: is so useful to humans. It's a net energy source
Speaker 2: for us. You invest a little bit of energy up front,
Speaker 2: and then the fuel and the atmosphere do the rest,
Speaker 2: letting you take out more energy than you put in.
Speaker 2: But this brings us back to this question. Since a
Speaker 2: diamond is made of almost pure carbon, wouldn't it seem
Speaker 2: to be an almost perfect fuel source. And at the
Speaker 2: same time, it still seems counterintuitive to think that a
Speaker 2: gemstone could burn up in a fire. I think because
Speaker 2: we think of a diamond as a type of rock,
Speaker 2: and in our regular experience, rocks do not burn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's totally the case, like
Speaker 1: the idea of the diamond as indestructible. But also when
Speaker 1: you you know, at least dip your toes in some
Speaker 1: of the science about like high heat, high pressure formation,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd be
Speaker 1: able to throw into a furnace, even if we're having
Speaker 1: to imagine some sort of like sort of sci fi
Speaker 1: furnace to drive your diamond powered train across the surface
Speaker 1: of a distant planet.
Speaker 2: Right, But despite these intuitions, diamonds are carbon based products,
Speaker 2: and they do burn. And this, in fact brings us
Speaker 2: back to a historical figure that we mentioned in the
Speaker 2: previous episode, the eighteenth century French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who
Speaker 2: we talked previously about how he is credited with proving
Speaker 2: that diamonds are made of nearly pure carbon. Apparently a
Speaker 2: major piece of evidence that Lavoisier produced in order to
Speaker 2: support that conclusion was an experiment showing that diamond could
Speaker 2: be burned and that the byproduct of its combustion was
Speaker 2: almost entirely carbon dioxide. Now, on the fact that diamonds
Speaker 2: can burn, often, when I learned something like this, I
Speaker 2: like to see if I can see it with my
Speaker 2: own eyes. Not that I don't believe it in this case,
Speaker 2: it seems like a well established fact, but just kind
Speaker 2: of to have increased confidence in knowing what it looks
Speaker 2: like and so forth. So I went looking for some
Speaker 2: trustworthy video of a diamond burning, and I did, indeed,
Speaker 2: find several. A good one was a video put out
Speaker 2: by the Royal Institution for their twenty twelve Christmas Lectures,
Speaker 2: in which they demonstrate the burning of graphite, which is
Speaker 2: also made of carbon, but far less compressed than a diamond,
Speaker 2: and also the burning of a diamond and rob I've
Speaker 2: attached some pictures for you to look at here in
Speaker 2: the outline, though of course we'll describe them for you
Speaker 2: at home.
Speaker 4: This year.
Speaker 2: Is a diamond burning shortly after it has been ignited
Speaker 2: in a glass chamber with a supply of flowing oxygen.
Speaker 2: And one thing I would note about it in the
Speaker 2: early parts of the burning process is that I can't
Speaker 2: see what looks like a traditional visible flame, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of the upward rising flame like you would see
Speaker 2: coming off of a campfire. Instead, I see what looks
Speaker 2: like the diamond glowing like a coal glowing on a
Speaker 2: charcoal grill after the flames die down. Except with those
Speaker 2: coals they usually glow a kind of dull orange. Here
Speaker 2: this is glowing ten times than any piece of coal
Speaker 2: I've ever seen, and with a whiter shade of light
Speaker 2: than I'm used to seeing in charcoal, more of a
Speaker 2: yellow white glow than an orange.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, if anything, this reminds me of special effects
Speaker 1: I've seen in movies and video games, like when I
Speaker 1: don't know, Marvel's captain Marvel is about to go supernova
Speaker 1: and her flesh starts glowing with this kind of like
Speaker 1: flameless intensity, that sort of thing. But of course, this
Speaker 1: is not a Marvel movie, this is not a video game.
Speaker 1: This is real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so there's this glowing imminence coming off of it. However,
Speaker 2: I did notice that later in the experiment they show
Speaker 2: there is what looks like a more traditional flame, mostly
Speaker 2: blue in color, coming off of the diamond, And I'm
Speaker 2: not sure why that was visible only toward the end
Speaker 2: of the burning experiment. Maybe it was just an issue
Speaker 2: of like lighting or camera angle, or maybe it had
Speaker 2: to do with changing conditions in the chamber as the
Speaker 2: diamond burns. Maybe I don't know, something about temperature, oxygen
Speaker 2: flow or something like that. But experiments like this confirm
Speaker 2: that you absolutely can burn diamonds, So that raises the
Speaker 2: question should we capitalize on this fuel source. Rob, you
Speaker 2: suggested the idea of like diamond punk technology earlier, you know,
Speaker 2: like run a diamond burning steam powered locomotive or diamond
Speaker 2: fired electric power plants for a few reasons, a couple
Speaker 2: of which may be obvious, one little less obvious. I
Speaker 2: think that would not work out. Obvious point number one,
Speaker 2: diamonds are expensive and rare compared to other carbon fuel sources,
Speaker 2: of course, would not make economic sense to burn them
Speaker 2: as fuel. Point number two, which I think is less obvious.
Speaker 2: Though diamonds do burn, they don't burn as easily as
Speaker 2: fuels like coal and wood. According to Baird, the reason
Speaker 2: for this is the strength of the bonds between the
Speaker 2: carbon atoms found in the diamond cubic. So you remember
Speaker 2: last time we talked about the the crystal structure of
Speaker 2: the diamond in which each so it's like a three
Speaker 2: dimensional structure that is linked in all directions, where each
Speaker 2: carbon atom is attached to four other carbon atoms with
Speaker 2: strong covalent bonds, meaning each of the carbon atoms is
Speaker 2: sharing pairs of electrons with its neighbor. And these are
Speaker 2: extremely strong bonds and the dense structure of atoms that
Speaker 2: is created within the diamond. These are the reasons why
Speaker 2: the diamond is so physically hard and nearly impossible to cut.
Speaker 2: These strong bonds and tight structure mean that it takes
Speaker 2: a lot of energy to break carbon atoms free from
Speaker 2: the diamond crystal. Now, in the case of physical pressure, friction,
Speaker 2: and impact, this explains the diamond's resilience, and in the
Speaker 2: case of combustion, it means that a diamond has a
Speaker 2: much higher ignition temperature than other carbon based fuels. And
Speaker 2: I've seen different numbers for the temperature at which diamond burns.
Speaker 2: I guess, as with other fuels, this would depend on
Speaker 2: environmental conditions as well, like the concentration of oxygen and
Speaker 2: the surrounding air and things like that. But the number
Speaker 2: that Baird gives is that a diamond burns in regular
Speaker 2: air at about nine hundred degrees celsius, which is about
Speaker 2: sixteen fifty fahrenheit. And for a point of comparison, Baird
Speaker 2: says that the ignition temperature of normal wood in atmosphere
Speaker 2: is only about three hundred degrees celsius. So there is
Speaker 2: a major difference in the amount of heat you need
Speaker 2: to put in at the beginning to get a diamond
Speaker 2: fire started, though the heat necessary would be reduced in
Speaker 2: an oxygen rich environment. And then the other thing is
Speaker 2: a diamond fire needs a rich environment of oxygen to
Speaker 2: continue burning, so you got to give it plenty of
Speaker 2: oxygen in order to keep powering that reaction of the
Speaker 2: oxygen in the air with the carbon. However, though it
Speaker 2: is much harder to burn in coal or wood, Bird
Speaker 2: does say you can burn or scorch a diamond with
Speaker 2: a regular flame, especially if it's really hot and has
Speaker 2: plenty of oxygen. He mentions that jewelers sometimes have to
Speaker 2: be careful if they're using a blowtorch to mold metal
Speaker 2: around a diamond, since the diamond could technically burn. Though
Speaker 2: it seems like from other things I was reading, without
Speaker 2: supplemental oxygen, a diamond typically won't burst into flames and
Speaker 2: disappear into smoke. It will instead, like show signs of
Speaker 2: damage directly on the surface, which could have increased opacity,
Speaker 2: making the diamond look sort of cloudy on the burned surface. Rabi,
Speaker 2: I found an image of this that I attached for
Speaker 2: you to look at. Here there are parts that are
Speaker 2: of this. This is a faceted cut diamond, and it
Speaker 2: has parts that appear to be burn marks where it
Speaker 2: looks kind of cloudy and opaque, whereas the rest of
Speaker 2: it is very sparkly and clear.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Okay, now there's another thing that Baird does not mention,
Speaker 2: but I was also wondering about with the difference in
Speaker 2: the burning in how easy it is to burn something
Speaker 2: like coal versus something like diamonds, which would be the
Speaker 2: porosity of the material, because if you have a less dense,
Speaker 2: more porous material, it seems that it is easier for
Speaker 2: oxygen to get in and surround the carbon atoms and
Speaker 2: more easily react with them. Whereas a diamond is very dense,
Speaker 2: very tight structure, you're essentially going to have all of
Speaker 2: the reaction with oxygen happening right at the surface layer.
Speaker 2: Another question this raises I assume this would be the case,
Speaker 2: is that a diamond powder would burn much more easily
Speaker 2: than a solid diamond. This is true though of most
Speaker 2: flammable things. You know, most of anything that you could
Speaker 2: set on fire in a solid form will combust much
Speaker 2: more rapidly and easily in a powdered form. And as
Speaker 2: a final point thinking about burning diamonds, though, the interesting
Speaker 2: thing is that so they are a carbon based fuel source,
Speaker 2: and this does mean that even if diamonds were cheap
Speaker 2: burning them as fuel, if we wanted to create that
Speaker 2: diamond punk world with the diamond fired steamships and the locomotives.
Speaker 2: This would be yet another energy source that would result
Speaker 2: in adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which of course
Speaker 2: is not exactly something we need to be adding to
Speaker 2: the menu of energy options in the world today. Though,
Speaker 2: I was trying to see if I could come up
Speaker 2: with an estimate on this, and I did not get anywhere.
Speaker 2: I suspect even if we burned all the free diamonds
Speaker 2: in the world, it would probably release very little carbon
Speaker 2: compared to what's already being emitted from daily fossil fuel use.
Speaker 2: But like I said, I could not come up with
Speaker 2: solid numbers on that. If any excellent nerds in the
Speaker 2: audience want to draw up an estimate, we invite your efforts.
Speaker 2: What would be the carbon footprint of a brief attempt
Speaker 2: by Planet Earth to go diamond punk?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be interested to hear that. Also, one of
Speaker 1: their yestmates about how long it take to burn up
Speaker 1: all the diamonds, like imagine the scenario. I was just
Speaker 1: trying to come with wine with even a very far
Speaker 1: vetter scenario, and which is what makes sense. Let's imagine
Speaker 1: Outer Limits. Ask super advanced alien society just decides they
Speaker 1: want to teach humanity a lesson, so they gift us
Speaker 1: this device. And this device is a furnace attached to
Speaker 1: a doomsday weapon, and it's pretty simple. All we have
Speaker 1: to do is keep the fire in this furnace burning,
Speaker 1: and as long as the fire is burning, the doomsday
Speaker 1: device will not go off. But the furnace will only
Speaker 1: burn diamonds. You can only put diamonds in it. So
Speaker 1: that leaves the people of Earth to figure out how
Speaker 1: they are going to collect set diamonds, at what rate
Speaker 1: they are going to put them in the furnace, and indeed,
Speaker 1: how long will they be able to keep this up
Speaker 1: before there are no more diamonds to burn and the
Speaker 1: device goes off.
Speaker 2: This feels like a science fiction variation on the plot
Speaker 2: of Speed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it is kind of a yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: you can imagine a Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper is the
Speaker 1: alien in this imaginary Outer Limits episode.
Speaker 2: I really like this idea. Can you imagine though, if
Speaker 2: aliens actually did come to Earth, we went to meet
Speaker 2: their ambassador and it's Dennis Hopper. That just would not
Speaker 2: inspire confidence.
Speaker 1: Well, it depends on which what part of Dennis Hopper's
Speaker 1: filmography they're drawing from. Like the younger Dennis Hopper, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of roles there where he was
Speaker 1: more of the relatable leading man. It's only you know,
Speaker 1: later in life where he tended to play on the
Speaker 1: whole more deplorable characters.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm not insulting Dennis Hoppers. I just
Speaker 2: been like I was thinking, we are greeted by the
Speaker 2: you know, the photo journalist and Apocalypse now or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a knack for playing often unhinged characters
Speaker 1: for sure. All right, well, let's return once more to
Speaker 1: the ancient world. Particularly, let's get let's get into some
Speaker 1: concepts concerning diamonds in ancient Greece and ancient Rome.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I think we got some good stuff on
Speaker 2: this one today. Now briefly to refresh about some stuff
Speaker 2: we talked about in the last episode we did, I
Speaker 2: think bring up Plenty of the Elders references to diamonds
Speaker 2: in his work. Remember, Plenty of the Elder is a
Speaker 2: first century ce Roman author who compiled a very important,
Speaker 2: influential sort of encyclopedia of what was known to you know,
Speaker 2: to his people at the time, known as the Natural History,
Speaker 2: and Plenty I think is the very last volume of
Speaker 2: Plenty's Natural History that was devoted to minerals and gemstones.
Speaker 2: And Plenty used in his work a term that was
Speaker 2: derived from the Greek called adamas, which earlier sources used
Speaker 2: to refer to a variety of materials that were considered
Speaker 2: very hard or maybe indestructible, but from description were clearly
Speaker 2: not diamonds. Plenty confusingly uses this term to refer to
Speaker 2: a list of different materials, some of which, it does seem,
Speaker 2: are diamonds, but maybe others are not.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: For example, a footnote in the one of the translations
Speaker 2: of Plenty we often turn to, which is available online,
Speaker 2: the boas Stock and Riley translation, that is a footnote
Speaker 2: saying that the author of this footnote thought that Plenty
Speaker 2: was probably not familiar with actual diamonds. However, this does
Speaker 2: not seem to be the conclusion of Jack Ogden in
Speaker 2: his book Diamonds the King of Gems, which we have
Speaker 2: referred to a few times on this series already. Ogden
Speaker 2: does seem to think that in some of these instances
Speaker 2: Plenty may be talking about diamonds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so let's get into some of this. So,
Speaker 1: drawing again from Ogden. Also, Ogden, along with historian Brian
Speaker 1: Fagan in a source I referenced in the last episode,
Speaker 1: also get into this a little bit. But the introduction
Speaker 1: of diamond tipped engraving stones during the early Roman period
Speaker 1: seems to have transformed the world of lapidary, allowing even
Speaker 1: the hardest gemstones to be drilled and engrave. So again
Speaker 1: we have to remember that there's this interesting dual nature
Speaker 1: to the diamond of the ancient world, where it's used,
Speaker 1: seemingly at times initially as just a raw material to
Speaker 1: work gemstones that were already popular colored gems, and then
Speaker 1: there's this transition into realizing that diamonds on their own
Speaker 1: are beautiful and are are also suitable to be considered gemstones.
Speaker 2: Right, so in many cases it's thought of as like
Speaker 2: a useful industrial material before it's thought of as a
Speaker 2: just beautiful decorative gem on its own.
Speaker 1: And this is important because to understand where we're going
Speaker 1: to go next, you need to realize that, yes, it
Speaker 1: does make sense to sometimes want to destroy a diamond
Speaker 1: in these even in the ancient world, because again not
Speaker 1: all diamonds are going to be suitable for working into
Speaker 1: some sort of valuable stone, but also there are going
Speaker 1: to be uses for diamond fragments and diamond powders. If
Speaker 1: you are working stones other gymstones and preparing them to
Speaker 1: use in various bits of jewelry.
Speaker 2: And so forth right, it's kind of an unbeatable abrasive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this brings us to the idea of softening
Speaker 1: your diamonds up by soaking them in goat blood. Not
Speaker 1: just any goat blood, but the blood of a he goat.
Speaker 2: The blood of she goats will not do yes.
Speaker 1: This is mentioned by both Plenty of the Elder and
Speaker 1: later by basanias this is the yeah, the idea that
Speaker 1: while the diamond is hard and resist to destruction, get
Speaker 1: yourself a little goat blood he goat blood, Let it
Speaker 1: soak in there, and that will put it. That'll soften
Speaker 1: things up enough that you can break it up and
Speaker 1: get what you need out of it. Now, Ogden points
Speaker 1: out that plenty source on this is uncertain and it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be based on anything drawn from Indian
Speaker 1: diamond tradition. So again, remember India is like the really
Speaker 1: the hot area for initial diamond culture, and it seems
Speaker 1: to sort of flow out of India into other cultures,
Speaker 1: Mediterranean cultures, and as we'll discuss, also into Chinese culture
Speaker 1: and so forth. So this idea doesn't seem to directly
Speaker 1: relate to anything known to exist in Indian diamond traditions,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't go away after it has been brought up.
Speaker 1: So there are writings about it from the fourteen hundreds onward,
Speaker 1: with descriptions of goat blood being used to soak and
Speaker 1: soften diamonds. In time, there were even writings on what
Speaker 1: sort of diet your he goat would need if you
Speaker 1: wanted to use its blood to soften up your diamonds.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's elaborate.
Speaker 1: None other than Roger Bacon refuted this idea during the
Speaker 1: thirteenth century, though I guess not everyone listened to Roger
Speaker 1: Bacon because the idea seemed to persist. And Ogden writes that, yeah,
Speaker 1: ultimately we have no idea where this came from, but
Speaker 1: it may be linked to various blood sacrificed rights connected
Speaker 1: to diamonds, much in the same way that such rights
Speaker 1: were associated with ancient metallurgy. He also speculates and This
Speaker 1: is where it gets really really interesting that maybe gem
Speaker 1: cutters would have needed to crush diamonds to produce chips
Speaker 1: for their work, like we were saying, and a working
Speaker 1: medium or paste would be useful to keep those bits
Speaker 1: of diamond from flying all over the place. I think
Speaker 1: we'd touched on this in the last episode or the
Speaker 1: one before it. Like when you do destroy a diamond,
Speaker 1: there's often this observation that just like it almost vanishes,
Speaker 1: it turns into this dust. It's just hard to collec
Speaker 1: it just goes everywhere.
Speaker 2: Right, So the idea is that if you could pound
Speaker 2: or smash your diamond within the matrix of like a thick,
Speaker 2: sticky liquid substance, that might help prevent some of it
Speaker 2: from being lost, just like flying off the table and
Speaker 2: going all over the place.
Speaker 1: Right right, So what might you use? Might you have
Speaker 1: used something like goat's blood? Ogden So points out that
Speaker 1: it's possible that they were, that people use something that
Speaker 1: maybe wasn't blood but contain blood, or maybe just looked
Speaker 1: like blood. He cites a Sanskrit recipe for medicinal diamond
Speaker 1: dust that involves first encasing the diamond in a mixture
Speaker 1: of beaten cotton plant and beetlenut, which has a red coloration.
Speaker 1: Then you roast it several times and then you're able
Speaker 1: to break it up.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. You know, I've before heard of the
Speaker 2: I think I've heard of the juice of a beetlenut
Speaker 2: being compared to blood or looking like blood in some instances. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wonder if that could be a mistaken identity at
Speaker 2: a distance there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe there are cases of Europeans encountering peoples
Speaker 1: that were chewing beetle nut and they would describe all
Speaker 1: that their mouths were bloody, and it's like, not that
Speaker 1: their mouths weren't bloody, they're just chewing petal nut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Ogden notes that lead was also used in
Speaker 1: the breaking of diamonds, something that took on airs of magic,
Speaker 1: since the lead is of course very soft and diamonds
Speaker 1: are very hard. But yeah, while diamonds are hard and
Speaker 1: have long been used to cut other gems, as we've
Speaker 1: been discussing, they're also quite brittle, and one means of
Speaker 1: breaking them and retaining the fragments was to first encase
Speaker 1: the diamond in lead before striking it with a hammer.
Speaker 1: Wax or a mixture made from horn was often used
Speaker 1: in some traditions, with a later idea connected to another
Speaker 1: tantalizing idea that diamond might be broken with a ram's horn.
Speaker 2: Huh. I wonder if that's true. I mean, the diamond
Speaker 2: can be shattered with a sufficiently powerful blow. But every
Speaker 2: thing I've read about and seen that was used for
Speaker 2: that purpose would be like a strong metal hammer, you know,
Speaker 2: like a steel hammer or something like that. Would a
Speaker 2: ram's horn be hard enough?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, I think maybe the idea is probably not. But
Speaker 1: in sort of the game of telephone and myth making,
Speaker 1: the idea of using a mixture with ground horn would
Speaker 1: be the thing you'd use. And then it gets you know,
Speaker 1: in the same way that eventually you're talking about just
Speaker 1: soaking your diamonds in blood or in this case, beating
Speaker 1: it with a horn. You know, it's just it becomes
Speaker 1: this sort of magical, cryptic thing, but it perhaps has
Speaker 1: a connection to some sort of actual practice. Now turning
Speaker 1: our attention to ancient China. First one, I just mentioned
Speaker 1: some some points that Ogden makes about diamonds in China.
Speaker 1: He points out that research has indicated that diamonds may
Speaker 1: have been used to polish nephrite jade from a very
Speaker 1: early period in Chinese history. I was looking at the
Speaker 1: source on this. It's from Lu at all, the earliest
Speaker 1: use of corundum and diamond in prehistoric China. This is
Speaker 1: from two thousand and five the author's right quote. We
Speaker 1: also present physical evidence that later Langzhou axes. This would
Speaker 1: have been around twenty five hundred BCE. This was a
Speaker 1: neolithic jade culture. Quote may made from the same previously
Speaker 1: undescribed rock whose most abundant component is corundum, where were
Speaker 1: polished to a mirror like finish with a diamond abrasive.
Speaker 1: Ogden points out that we have fifth century CE Chinese
Speaker 1: writings describing diamond set finger rings worn by foreigners and
Speaker 1: sent to China from India and in one case from Java.
Speaker 1: Java was apparently a source for Chinese diamonds prior to
Speaker 1: European involvement in Java during the seventeenth century. There's a
Speaker 1: gold ring with a set diamond that was found that in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy excavation of a fifth century CE Nanjing tomb. Diamonds,
Speaker 1: of course would have traveled on the Silk Road and
Speaker 1: in an interesting connection of technologies again, thinking about the
Speaker 1: Silk Road, thinking about various materials and technologies and bits
Speaker 1: of culture traveling throughout Eurasia along these trade routes. He
Speaker 1: points out that an Italian innovation of a crank flywheel
Speaker 1: belt driven grinding apparatus for working gymstones was seemingly based
Speaker 1: on silk spinning technology from China, and this would have
Speaker 1: been adopted during.
Speaker 4: The thirteenth century. Oh interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, different different aims, different technological approaches
Speaker 1: that end up speaking to each other across the Silk Road. Now,
Speaker 1: I was also looking around some other sources. I was
Speaker 1: looking at an older text, The Diamond, a Study in
Speaker 1: Chinese and Hellenistic Folklore, Volume fifteen, issues one through two
Speaker 1: by German anthropologist bertheled Law for it is from nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: but he was a pretty big big deal. He pointed
Speaker 1: out in this book that there were song dynasty tellings
Speaker 1: of the Valley of Gems. That story we talked about
Speaker 1: in the last episode, in which you have your diamonds
Speaker 1: down there at the bottom of this deep canyon or valley,
Speaker 1: and the only way to get them is, of course
Speaker 1: to throw meat down there. The meat will stick to
Speaker 1: the diamonds, or the diamonds will stick to the meat rather,
Speaker 1: and then giant birds will swoop down in there, collect
Speaker 1: the meat and bring that meat up to the surface,
Speaker 1: or they'll eat the meat, and you have to kill
Speaker 1: the birds and then harvest the diamonds from their stomachs.
Speaker 2: And often it was said that there were monsters of
Speaker 2: some kind or like venomous snakes down at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the valley, which is a reason you can't go
Speaker 2: down there and get the diamonds yourself.
Speaker 1: Right, And so this is a very infectious story. It
Speaker 1: spreads and throughout diamond cultures, and it spreads with diamonds
Speaker 1: to other cultures, and so it's not surprising that there
Speaker 1: are also tellings of it in Chinese traditions. But the
Speaker 1: versions that Lafer brings up here mentions that, okay, in
Speaker 1: these tellings, the great eagles that feast on the diamond
Speaker 1: studied meat in the valley, they just eventually poop out
Speaker 1: the diamonds, so they're not being they're not there's no
Speaker 1: driving them away from the meat and getting the diamonds.
Speaker 1: There's no looking for there, there's no killing the birds
Speaker 1: and then digging them out of their bodies. No, you
Speaker 1: just have to go out to the Gobi desert because
Speaker 1: that is where they are dropping their diamond filled poops.
Speaker 2: Wow, that seems so much simpler than having to fight
Speaker 2: the bird and kill it. Yeah, just scour the poop fields.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not hurting the birds, you're not stressing
Speaker 1: them out, you're not having having to fight a giant
Speaker 1: bird that's eating snakes the size of elephants and so forth. Now,
Speaker 1: this of course got me wondering. It's like, well, why
Speaker 1: the Gobi Desert of all places? You know, I was
Speaker 1: wanting to line up with reality at all. Sadly, Lafer
Speaker 1: doesn't really mention the Gobi Desert at all elsewhere in
Speaker 1: this particular text. Certainly some precious minerals are found in
Speaker 1: the Gobi region, though I've not read about diamonds being
Speaker 1: on that list. Perhaps they are. Perhaps I'm missing something
Speaker 1: it's worth stressing. As Laffer does though that the original
Speaker 1: Song Dynasty source on this wrote that he was not
Speaker 1: sure if the story was true or not, so it's
Speaker 1: another case of someone passing along this story, but also
Speaker 1: being like, I cannot vouch for this, but this is
Speaker 1: what has been told to me, I was.
Speaker 2: Just looking at various maps of known diamond deposits and
Speaker 2: diamond mines in the world, and the Gobi Desert does
Speaker 2: not appear to be a hotspot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, but again, who knows exactly how the story
Speaker 1: comes together. Now. Lafer also touches on the subject of
Speaker 1: gemstone phosphorescence. I found this pretty interesting. So tales of
Speaker 1: luminous gems, these go way back. You can find examples
Speaker 1: of this in ancient writings and medieval writings, and apparently
Speaker 1: there is some truth to the idea some gems glow
Speaker 1: in the dark after excitement via friction or heat, and
Speaker 1: such observations could have potentially been exaggerated into some of
Speaker 1: the traditions around the world glowing stones, and there are
Speaker 1: some versions that are apparently unique to Chinese traditions, including
Speaker 1: tales of pearls that glow in the dark, and even
Speaker 1: the pupils of certain female whales described as moonlight pearls. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there would be this pearl like object that glows with
Speaker 1: like a moonlight luminosity, and you could pull it out
Speaker 1: in a dark room and you would see the glow.
Speaker 1: And these were seemingly regarded as a real thing during
Speaker 1: the fourth century CE, and as the author notes, it's
Speaker 1: not entirely divorced from the real world. You know, Phosphorescent
Speaker 1: biology in the marine world is a real thing, and
Speaker 1: it was noted by ancient observers. They may not have
Speaker 1: known as much about the undersea world as we know today,
Speaker 1: but they knew that sometimes you find things that kind
Speaker 1: of glow or outright glow in the oceanic world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you don't even necessarily have to go to
Speaker 2: the deep ocean for that. That's where a lot of
Speaker 2: the examples we think of are. But there are you know,
Speaker 2: masses of smaller organisms that float near the surface of
Speaker 2: the water and can create bioluminescent glows or phosphorescence sometimes
Speaker 2: visible just you know, in the waves.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So, yeah, the idea, you know, has at least
Speaker 1: a couple of feet on the ground here, or maybe
Speaker 1: not the whole foot, but at least some toads touched
Speaker 1: on the ground, and some fantasy and other aspects of
Speaker 1: the telling. But yeah, other tales of whalestone state that
Speaker 1: you could see reflection in one at night and that
Speaker 1: it had purifying qualities. And then there were also accounts
Speaker 1: that said that they could be found in the eyes
Speaker 1: of dolphins as well. Lafer points out that other examples
Speaker 1: of glowing items of biological origin in Chinese tradition includes
Speaker 1: the horn of the rhino, and also it was said
Speaker 1: that there was like a variety of will o the
Speaker 1: wisp that would rise from battlefields. So after some sort
Speaker 1: of terrible battle on which humans and horses have died,
Speaker 1: it would see this glow that rises up like a mist,
Speaker 1: and a variation of this would continue on into Japanese traditions,
Speaker 1: with the idea being the other this is somehow connected
Speaker 1: to the life force of the beings that perished here. However,
Speaker 1: as Laffer discusses, there would seem to be something of
Speaker 1: an open question as to what extent ideas about glowing
Speaker 1: diamonds and Chinese tradition were based on observations of diamond
Speaker 1: phosph phosphorescence, or if it was like a continuation of
Speaker 1: traditions surrounding pearls and other gems, and as diamonds are
Speaker 1: introduced and or diamonds are upgraded to gymstone status, they
Speaker 1: take on these ideas. In general, ideas of phosphorescent diamonds
Speaker 1: may also be connected to the electrical qualities of diamonds,
Speaker 1: which plenty of the Elder also wrote about. So basically,
Speaker 1: when a diamond is electrified or exposed to friction, it
Speaker 1: can pick up paper and other light substances, though it
Speaker 1: does not become a conductor. But observations lead ancient writers
Speaker 1: at times to champion diamonds over loadstones as just magnetic powerhouse.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, in modern evaluation of diamonds, UV lighting is
Speaker 1: sometimes used to judge the authenticity of diamonds, looking for
Speaker 1: that for some sort of like a faint glow, and
Speaker 1: evidence that a diamond is actually magnetic to any degree
Speaker 1: or responds to a magnet is it's an indication that
Speaker 1: what you have here is not one hundred percent carbon
Speaker 1: and is therefore not a real diamond. And if it has,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of metal content to it, well
Speaker 1: it's not carbon. Interesting now, it should come as no
Speaker 1: surprise that diamond is not just an earth thing. Diamond
Speaker 1: can be found in meteorites, often in the form of nanodiamonds.
Speaker 1: In particular, there's a hexagonal diamond as opposed to the
Speaker 1: cubicle lattice of diamond as we've been discussing it, and
Speaker 1: it's it's called Long's Dale light, by some estimates more
Speaker 1: than fifty percent harder than normal or terrestrial diamonds, or
Speaker 1: diamonds as we've been discussing them. So this form of
Speaker 1: diamond was first identified in nineteen sixty seven in the
Speaker 1: Canyon Diabolo meteorite in the form of nanocrystals. Lonstolite is
Speaker 1: formed when graphite containing meteors strike the Earth, with the
Speaker 1: resulting heat and stress transforming the graphite into this form
Speaker 1: of diamond. However, the largest of these are merely a
Speaker 1: micron in size, so it's not if you're imagining sort
Speaker 1: of like a scene from the opening of the classic
Speaker 1: film The Blob, you know, in which the perfectly round
Speaker 1: meteorite cracks open and there's something inside it, perhaps a diamond.
Speaker 1: In this case, that does not seem to be the case.
Speaker 1: These would be very small, but you do have some
Speaker 1: interesting appearances of this material. Lonstolite deposits were apparently discovered
Speaker 1: in Tunguska and having to do with the Tunguska event,
Speaker 1: which of course is a supporting evidence for the idea
Speaker 1: that what we're talking about there is as opposed to
Speaker 1: a comet, and it's thought that this form of diamond
Speaker 1: also forms in major planetary collisions as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was reading about some other interesting cases of
Speaker 2: probable impact diamonds that are found. You mentioned Tunguska, but
Speaker 2: there's a really big impact structure in northern Siberia called
Speaker 2: the Poppy Guy impact structure, which is the result of
Speaker 2: a huge impact like thirty five million years ago, and
Speaker 2: it is also thought to have created a lot of
Speaker 2: diamonds when it struck. It's thought that the intense heat
Speaker 2: and energy of the impact event essentially, yeah, turned graphite
Speaker 2: that was already present in the rocks in the ground
Speaker 2: into diamonds.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: But again we're still we're talking about nano diamonds here,
Speaker 1: and I realize that's probably not what's going to captivate
Speaker 1: everyone's imagination. You want to consider some serious space rocks,
Speaker 1: And indeed, stories about possible giant space diamond do periodically
Speaker 1: pop up in the space news, Like this is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that I don't have specific memories of
Speaker 1: this occurring, but it's the kind of thing that could
Speaker 1: pop up on like late night television. There's so many
Speaker 1: jokes who can make about giant space diamonds, and there's
Speaker 1: something about like it's just an interesting reflection on how
Speaker 1: we treat diamonds here on Earth again, that they're rare,
Speaker 1: they're generally small, and the idea that there could be
Speaker 1: an enormous one out there in space somewhere, but we
Speaker 1: just can't get to it. It's kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: tease though.
Speaker 2: I mean, the funny thing is people think like, oh wow,
Speaker 2: if we could, you know, if we could just get
Speaker 2: this planet sized diamond back to Earth, then I'd really
Speaker 2: be rich.
Speaker 4: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Then it just seems like diamonds would be worthless if
Speaker 2: there was that much of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Or like, what are we We're going to
Speaker 1: bring it back to Earth and bring it into an
Speaker 1: orbit around our planet, what happens next? I don't like
Speaker 1: the possibilities.
Speaker 2: You'd have to tightly control, like how much of it
Speaker 2: that you mind brought back to Earth so as not
Speaker 2: to flood the market and make it worthless.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, now this is interesting. There is this idea
Speaker 1: that I believe it is no longer favorite at all,
Speaker 1: but the idea that Jupiter in our own solar system,
Speaker 1: the idea that it could have a core that is
Speaker 1: essentially a huge diamond, And in fact, this is the
Speaker 1: idea proposed any work of fiction by Arthur C. Clark in
Speaker 1: his book twenty sixty one Odyssey three. Now I haven't
Speaker 1: read Odyssey three. I've only read his first book in
Speaker 1: the series, twentyd and one in Space Odyssey, based on
Speaker 1: his screenplay for the Stanley Kubrick movie. It's my understanding, however,
Speaker 1: that this is not necessarily a trilogy in the sense
Speaker 1: of other like sci fi and fantasy trilogies, just kind
Speaker 1: of like it's more of a continuation of some of
Speaker 1: the same themes, but with more futuristic events occurring.
Speaker 2: Now you mentioned it is no longer favored the idea
Speaker 2: that at the core of Jupiter there's a big old diamond.
Speaker 2: But we did talk in our episode on the Moons
Speaker 2: of Uranus about the idea that the atmospheric dynamics within
Speaker 2: the atmosphere of Urinus produce diamond rain.
Speaker 4: This, yeah, the diamond rain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that it that it rains diamonds within within the
Speaker 2: gases of Urinus. So you can go listen to those
Speaker 2: episodes if you want the fuller explanation there.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you pointed that one out. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: also a great idea and that I think captivates the
Speaker 1: imagination because it's like it's like that Treehouse of Horror
Speaker 1: episode where where Homer freaks out because there are no
Speaker 1: doughnuts in this one reality that he transfers into, and
Speaker 1: then after he leaves it turns out it actually rains
Speaker 1: donuts here. That's right anyway, in this in this author C.
Speaker 1: Clark book, which again I haven't read. If you have
Speaker 1: read and you want to write in with more details,
Speaker 1: feel free. But basically the idea spoiler for the Second
Speaker 1: Odyssey book twenty But in that book, Jupiter explodes and
Speaker 1: becomes a star, and in twenty sixty one it's revealed
Speaker 1: that since the core of Jupiter is made of diamond,
Speaker 1: there's now a mountain made of diamond on Europa. And
Speaker 1: at the time of his writing this was apparently not
Speaker 1: entirely out of the question, but the Galileo Prob's findings
Speaker 1: gave us more insight into Jupiter's composition, and this ultimately
Speaker 1: ruled out the diamond core hypothesis. But again, you don't
Speaker 1: give up hope. There's still the diamond rains potentially on Urunas.
Speaker 1: And then there are some more far flung candidates that
Speaker 1: you might consider for diamond worlds. These are two that
Speaker 1: have definitely popped up on a lot of like the
Speaker 1: space news websites. I'm gonna tell you about a couple
Speaker 1: of them here in case you haven't heard. The first
Speaker 1: one is a place called that's classified is fifty five
Speaker 1: cancrie E, also known as Jansen. This is forty one
Speaker 1: light years away in the Answer constellation. It may have
Speaker 1: lava oceans. It may have a diamond core discovered in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. We of course don't know for
Speaker 1: sure what its composition is, but based on observations and
Speaker 1: observation data, it might be a rocky, high carbon world
Speaker 1: and its mass could be as much as one third diamond. However,
Speaker 1: don't buy your ticket just yet. More information is needed.
Speaker 1: More information is required. I don't want you to travel
Speaker 1: all the way there and find out that it is
Speaker 1: not a rocky world and it is not one third diamond.
Speaker 2: Be a real time enough at last situation to get there,
Speaker 2: ready to mine the diamond, and then realize that, oh
Speaker 2: it doesn't have oxygen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, another place in our universe that has also
Speaker 1: popped up in these various science stories is a white
Speaker 1: dwarf star classified as HD one nine four one two C.
Speaker 1: This one's located one hundred and four light years away,
Speaker 1: and scientists have theorized that it could be in the
Speaker 1: process of cooling and crystallizing into a giant diamond. WHOA,
Speaker 1: all right, you know it sounds promising, However, big caveat here.
Speaker 1: This process is thought to take somewhere on the order
Speaker 1: of one quadrillion years, which would mean that this particular
Speaker 1: white dwarf, along with oh, I don't know all other stars,
Speaker 1: is simply not old enough to have transformed yet. And
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a hell of a
Speaker 1: waiting game if you show up there anticipating the possibility
Speaker 1: that it's going to turn into a big diamond. But
Speaker 1: I love these ideas of like giant space diamonds, and
Speaker 1: especially in this latter case, out of reach in both
Speaker 1: time and space. I mean, Beker's anything on the measure
Speaker 1: of light years away is out of reach in both
Speaker 1: time and space to us, but especially the idea of
Speaker 1: HD one nine oh four one two C, because it's
Speaker 1: if it does become a diamond, it's going to become
Speaker 1: a diamond so far into the future that it's basically
Speaker 1: a dream.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's where the diamond punk technology regime actually arises.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was thinking about it a little bit
Speaker 1: when you were talking about diamonds as fuel, Like if
Speaker 1: you had some sort of diamond world, or it doesn't
Speaker 1: even have to be a diamond world, just we could
Speaker 1: borrow from Arthur C. Clark and just imagine a scenario
Speaker 1: where you have an enormous mass of diamond on some world,
Speaker 1: some moon somewhere that was ejected from some sort of
Speaker 1: diamond core scenario that and it provided diamond in enough quantity,
Speaker 1: then perhaps you could use that to prop up your
Speaker 1: idea of a diamond furnace that powers something. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it ends up taking on religious connotations because I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea of a furnace that burns entirely on diamond,
Speaker 1: even if it's not practical from an energy standpoint, maybe
Speaker 1: there is something kind of like spiritually attractive about that. Again,
Speaker 1: assuming the culture that's powering the furnace sees diamond as
Speaker 1: something that is special and beautiful and holy and not
Speaker 1: just something to be used to work other gemstones or
Speaker 1: to fire up a furnace.
Speaker 2: Well should be blast off from the diamond planet for today.
Speaker 1: I believe so. But don't worry. We'll be back with
Speaker 1: another core episode on Thursday, because Tuesdays and Thursdays that's
Speaker 1: when we have core episodes of stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: We're primarily a science podcast. On Fridays, though, we set
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema. On Mondays we do listener mail,
Speaker 1: and on Wednesdays we do a short form episode. Let's
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Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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