Ep. 170: The 5 Cs of Diamonds
Intro
Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
I’m Jans your Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on the hardest substance on planet Earth and a woman’s best friend, Diamonds.
Diamonds are our most precious and rare gem, which are made from carbon which is arranged in a crystalline structure. Their sparkle is produced by light reflections which is then augmented by the cut, with a round brilliant cut giving the diamond the most sparkle.
The diamond is formed deep within the Earth’s mantle under intense heat and pressure. They are then brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions.
Diamonds are graded using a system developed by the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) in the 1950s. This grading system uses four factors to describe and classify, which are clarity, colour, cut, and carat, which are known as the 4Cs.
Clarity is a measure of the purity and rarity of the diamond, colour refers to what you can’t see with a diamond being more valuable the less colour, cut influences how well a diamond reflects light, while carat refers to the weight.
While diamonds are a great source of love and have played a part, in much history, they also have a darker side with the term “Blood Diamond” highlighting the ethical and negative consequences of the diamond trade in certain regions.
These days chemically and physically identical diamonds are now grown in the lab and offer sustainable alternatives to this precious gem.
Today’s mnemonic will be on the 5 Cs of diamonds.
So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Summary
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond as a form of carbon is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insoluble in water. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, but diamond is metastable and converts to it at a negligible rate under those conditions.
Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are used in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. They are also the reason that diamond anvil cells can subject materials to pressures found deep in the Earth.
Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few types of impurity can contaminate it (two exceptions are boron and nitrogen). Small numbers of defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) can colour a diamond blue (boron), yellow (nitrogen), brown (defects), green (radiation exposure), purple, pink, orange, or red. Diamond also has a very high refractive index and a relatively high optical dispersion.
Most natural diamonds have ages between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years. Most were formed at depths between 150 and 250 kilometres (93 and 155 mi) in the Earth's mantle, although a few have come from as deep as 800 kilometres (500 mi).
Under high pressure and temperature, carbon-containing fluids dissolved various minerals and replaced them with diamonds. Much more recently (hundreds to tens of million years ago), they were carried to the surface in volcanic eruptions and deposited in igneous rocks known as kimberlites and lamproites.
Synthetic diamonds can be grown from high-purity carbon under high pressures and temperatures or from hydrocarbon gases by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Natural and synthetic diamonds are most commonly distinguished using optical techniques or thermal conductivity measurements.
Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond]
Mnemonic
The 5 Cs of Diamonds Mnemonic – Carrot Colour when Cut shows Clarity giving you Confidence to eat
(Picture a carrot, orange in colour, cut in half showing you the clarity of the carrot giving you the confidence to eat it)
1. Carat
2. Colour
3. Cut
4. Clarity
5. Confidence
Five Fun Facts
1. The diamond is more than a billion years old. While the Earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years old. The oldest diamonds are believed to have been crystallized around 3.3 billion years ago. Diamonds were first discovered in India, and then subsequently in Brazil.
2. The word diamond derives from the Greek word ‘adamas’ meaning invincible or indestructible, which is quite fitting considering their hardness. The Greeks believed that diamonds were the tears of the gods, while the Romans thought they were shards from the stars.
3. Diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth. In fact, diamonds are so hard that the only thing that can scratch a diamond is another diamond. Further proof of the diamond’s strength was illustrated when it was used as a window on a spacecraft surveying the atmosphere of Venus, as it was the only substance that had both the strength and transparency.
4. The Tiffany diamond is one of the largest diamonds ever found. It was found in South Africa in 1877 and purchased by the jeweller, Charles Tiffany. At 128 carats it is around two and a half times larger than the Hope diamond. It is seldom worn however, with only four women having the exclusive honour, namely Mrs. E. Sheldon Whitehouse, Audrey Hepburn, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce Knowles.
5. The first diamond found in South Africa was the Eureka diamond. It was fortuitously found by a 15-year-old boy who picked it off the ground after he saw it glitter in the sun. It was put on display at the 1867 Paris Exhibition, after which it returned to South Africa where the Governor of the Cape Colony bought it for £500. He then took it to the United Kingdom where it stayed for the next 100 years before it was purchased by De Beers who donated it to the South African people where it is now on display at the Kimberley Mine Museum.
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Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Diamonds are made up of what element?
Q.2. Diamonds are the birthstone for which month?
Q.3. Scientists have discovered a star that is essentially a diamond of ten billion trillion trillion carats. Is that True or False
Bonus Q. The Hope diamond which is believed to be cursed is what colour?
Bonus Q. In 1905, the world’s largest rough diamond was found. What was it named?
Mnemonic Recap
The 5 Cs of Diamonds Mnemonic – Carrot Colour when Cut shows Clarity giving you Confidence to eat
(Picture a carrot, orange in colour, cut in half showing you the clarity of the carrot giving you the confidence to eat it)
1. Carat
2. Colour
3. Cut
4. Clarity
5. Confidence
Three Question Quiz Answers
Q.1. Diamonds are made up of what element?
A. Carbon
Now apparently all fake diamonds are also made up of carbon and I firmly believe they should be illegal … … after all, they’re “carbon copies!”
Q.2. Diamonds are the birthstone for which month?
A. April
Q.3. Scientists have discovered a star that is essentially a diamond of ten billion trillion trillion carats. Is that True or False
A. True. They named the star “Lucy” after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
Bonus Q. The Hope diamond which is believed to be cursed is what colour?
A. Blue
Bonus Q. In 1905, the world’s largest rough diamond was found. What was it named?
A. The Cullinan diamond and weighed 3,106 carats! It was later cut into nine large diamonds and 100 smaller ones
Word of the Week
mammonism
[ mam-uh-niz-uhm ]
the greedy pursuit of riches.
Example
The search for diamonds has caused much mammonism in history passed.
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
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References
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mammonism#example-sentences
https://www.masterjewelersindiana.com/diamonds/5-fun-facts-diamonds/
https://www.brilliantearth.com/news/15-amazing-facts-about-diamonds/
https://www.funtrivia.com/submitquiz.cfm
https://www.forevermark.com/en/now-forever/a-diamond-is-forever/10-diamond-facts/
https://www.koserjewelers.com/blog-post/interesting-facts-about-diamonds