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