Diamond Planet

[Daryn]

It seems like Astronomers have discovered a planet made of Diamond. Like wow!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77O69A20110825

[Seismic]

I believe this is a "WTF?!" moment for astronomy.

[Slate]

I don't trust it. I SAW the episode of Doctor Who when they went to a planet made of diamond.

[BIos_Reaper]

In 300 years we will go there and become rich beyond imagening, or die horribly trying X3 nifty article! Also, I think it's possible. If it once was an actual planet and it's well, entirety was just blown off somehow. I mean there's mountain sized payloads of diamond deep inside our earth most likely, rivers of metal as well, not too hard to believe but we'll see! X3 fun to read though! The universe never ceases to try and fuck with our astronmers head!

[SliceOfDog]

Wow, that's bloody awesome! XD
I can imagine lifeforms there mocking us. "Your moon's made of moulded milk is it? Well our planets are made of diamond"
Although considering... they'd probably value the cheese more.

I also found the Pulsar very interesting. "spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation". It's like something out of Superman!

[Seismic]

Wow, that's bloody awesome! XD
I can imagine lifeforms there mocking us. "Your moon's made of moulded milk is it? Well our planets are made of diamond"
Although considering... they'd probably value the cheese more.

I also found the Pulsar very interesting. "spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation". It's like something out of Superman!

Aliens on a diamond world would look at the surface of thier world the same way we see dirt. Nothing special.

[Dusty]

Aliens on a diamond world would look at the surface of thier world the same way we see dirt. Nothing special.

Economics? In MY Xeno-biology?

[Tha_Pig]

I think Arthur C. Clark had a giant space diamond in one of his stories. Reality keeps trying to catch up with our craziest fictions!

[Tha_Pig]

In 300 years we will go there and become rich beyond imagening

The problem is that what makes diamonds valuable is their scarcity. If we had a way to reach a million tons of diamonds, diamonds would instantly become worthless.

I remember a science fiction story where the mad scientist finds an unlimited supply of gold under the Earth crust. So he loads ships with tons of gold and sells it at two dollars the ingot. Everywhere his ships arrive people come in masses and make long lines to buy cheap gold.

Before people realizes it, everyone in the world owns a worthless block of metal and the evil guy has all the cash.

[JanetStarhatcher]

Actually, diamonds in this world are an artificial scarcity. Or rather, not as scarce as the companies that sell them would have you believe. There are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of warehouses filled to the brim with diamonds. By holding onto these diamonds and keeping them from being released, they can lock down the price whenever they want. An competitors get knocked out by 'newly discovered veins' sold at a steep discount for a while, until the monopolistic companies decide to end it to sell them for them for a high price when the vein 'runs dry'... Now that the rant is over... I prefer quartz over diamonds, and some kinds of quartz have a true scarcity because of the specific minerals that have to be in the soil to create the colors that they become... the diamond planet is cool...

[SliceOfDog]

While it's true that their value is in scarcity and that markets manipulate that 'scarcity' to their own ends (Not heard of it to the extent you claim, Janet, but I wouldn't be surprised) I would argue that diamonds have more of an inherent value than gold does. Diamond can be used in rather a lot of circumstances, due to it's strength (diamond drills and so on) and the interesting things they do to light. While their value is horribly inflated, it's still somewhat understandable. Gold is a terrible material. Sure, sure, occasionally you use gold filaments or little gold strips or something or another, but mostly it's just poor. Too soft to make anything out of, too rare to mass produce as a malleable metal, and if I remember correctly it doesn't really react with much. It's just boring.

I remember a science fiction story where the mad scientist finds an unlimited supply of gold under the Earth crust. So he loads ships with tons of gold and sells it at two dollars the ingot. Everywhere his ships arrive people come in masses and make long lines to buy cheap gold.

Before people realizes it, everyone in the world owns a worthless block of metal and the evil guy has all the cash.

That sounds like my kind of evil guy! Can you remember what story this was? I might give it a read.

[Tha_Pig]

Oh, there are few sensations as pleasing as cutting a slab of marble with a diamond saw. And that's all I care about diamonds, out of their industrial utility I could never understand people's obsession with them.

That sounds like my kind of evil guy! Can you remember what story this was? I might give it a read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garin_Death_Ray

It's a great novel if you can see pass the obvious communist propaganda. I like it because it predicted military grade lasers long before they were invented. I read it as a kid and it gave me an unhealthy obsession with concave mirrors.

[Slate]

Oh, there are few sensations as pleasing as cutting a slab of marble with a diamond saw. And that's all I care about diamonds, out of their industrial utility I could never understand people's obsession with them.

Agreed. To me, diamonds are extremely plain.

@Slice: Gold has a lot of uses actually, most notably in electronic devices. And because it is so malleable, that is the reason it was used for so long in dentistry.

I highly recommend researching the uses for gold, as it's more interesting than you might think C: