A Step Toward the Diamond Age

An anonymous reader writes "Carnegie Institution researchers have learned to produce 10-carat, half-inch thick diamonds at rates of about 100 micrometers per hour, which in the diamond biz is blazingly fast. And these aren't cruddy, yellow diamonds either, but gem-quality stones. The goal: A 300 carat beast in whatever shape they want."

Re:Excellent

[Seumas]

It doesn't matter. Some other rare thing will replace the diamond and nobody will want diamonds anymore (except for industrial purposes). When it comes to women, it will still just be a matter of how much you are willing to spend to get a piece of that self-absorbed, attention-seeking, validation-needing ass. If diamonds become as cheap as glass, something else will become common to replace them as a means of proving your desperation for a piece of ass by buying something technically worthless and useless.

They'll get their grants revoked

[KiloByte]

Do you want to bet how long it will take for a certain criminal, monopolistic, little-african-children abusing cartel to have the research grants revoked, and if that fails, to have an accident happen to the scientists in question?

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[aussie_a]

Got any evidence of this happening in the past? Or has your tin-foil cap bubbled your brain away?

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[La Camiseta]

You're completely overlooking the fact that some much larger industries are probably frothing at the mouth when hearing about this (namely the tech industry). Intel, AMD, IBM, and the like have wanted the ability to use diamonds instead of copper in chips for ages. With this ability, they can push clock speeds (and consequently temps) into ranges previously unheard of without worrying about melting the innards of the processor.

I can just about guarantee you that if they were to get their funding revoked because of DeBeers, then those scientists could just as easily go to some of the major chip manufacturers and find levels of funding that they wouldn't even be able to dream of while working in academia.

Re:Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Natural diamonds are little uninteresting glassy pebbles, until a great deal of shaping and cutting and marketing are applied. Even so, could you tell the difference between a real diamond and a similarly cut bit of leaded glass?

The virtue of diamonds is not "ooh, pretty". There are a lot of potential engineering uses, at the right price.

Re:Ugh...

[thesupraman]

Yes, thats right, a lump of crystal dug out of a large, polluting hole by minimum wage (if they are lucky) workers by sheer luck, and used to prop up massive corps is SO much better than one produced in a demonstration of our ability to solve extremely difficult technological problems, and produce an identical item.

Of course, in a few years you wont be able to tell which is which, so long as they work out how to add in a few imperfections to make the grown crystal look as poor as the natural one.

About damn time, another artificially produced drain on the common mans pocket toppled.

Re:Ugh...

[jurt1235]

Maybe that is why DeBeers is fighting this kind of efforts, especially since these artificially produced ones are of better quality than the real ones.

Diamonds are not beautifull when you find them. It is a like a little rock, rough surface, irregular shape, until the cutting and polishing takes place. These artificially made diamonds (it is a diamond, DeBeers does it not want to have that name), are having the basic shapes and most likely will need less cutting.

When there are enough diamonds available, I guess that we will find new applications for it, more usefull applications than a show off how rich we are.

I can't agree to that

[Control42]

Is an original oil painting more beautiful than a copy? No, it's the same picture. But the value of the original is higher. The difference in value comes from the possibility of detecting the uniqueness of the original. If the copy was a true identical copy, their values would also be identical.

Re:Ugh...

[goneutt]

but they can never be as beautiful simply because we produced them.

And yet theres all those silicone pumped women that men pay so much money to look at.

And certain women.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The diamond market is strictly controlled to keep prices artificially high. It is safe to assume such people would whatever it takes to maintain this control.

unfortunately

[cahiha]

With the availability of high quality artificial diamonds, we could stop diamond mining. Unfortunately, the diamond mining industries are trying to perpuate their expensive and destructive extraction business by trying to create a special mystique around "natural" diamonds.

So, be aware that the high price you pay for a "natural" diamond is a direct result of the rather unnatural destruction of the environment, together with monopolistic prices charged by the diamond cartels. There are better ways to say "I love you" to someone.

Diamond market will not collapse

[jaquesparrow]

Its amusing that people are automatically assuming that mass producing diamonds would make the diamond market collapse. While it certainly is a possibility it is highly unlikely due to the following reasons. 1) DeBeers can launch a new marketing ploy and sell their diamonds as naturally forming diamonds compared with man-made diamonds. They could have a larger range of diamonds and infact increase their revenue potential, by charging a higher premium on naturally occuring diamonds. Think of it as a comparision between driving a toyota and a bmw. Toyota for the masses and bmw for the clients who can afford that level of a machine. 2) All tin foil hat conspiracies aside, jewellery is not the only area where diamonds are used so extensively. While it is the most talked about and marketed, diamonds have significant number of uses in industry that such a cheap form of making diamonds would accomodate. 3) Imagine the industries this is going to spawn. Right now they have technology to do laser cutting or painting your picture into glass. Imagine doing the same with a diamond. Debeers will survive, as they will adjust their business model to accomodate this.

Re:Ugh...

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

A large part of a diamond's appeal is that something so stunningly beautiful was formed naturally. We can produce pretty, sparkly stones, but they can never be as beautiful simply because we produced them.

Nice try. Natural diamonds are hardly beautiful. Only when you carefully cut them exactly the right way, and polish them properly, do they appear so beautiful. And it's really hard to argue that diamonds are more beautiful than any other gemstone - almost all of which can be created in the lab now, by the way.

No, diamonds are just the most expensive gem. For no good reason. And thankfully, perhaps not for much longer.

Statistics?

[nagora]

Anyone out there have any data on how common natural diamonds actually are? DeBeers and co control the supply but diamond fields are huge; is there any reality to the idea that these gems are rare?

TWW

Re:Excellent

[Nogami_Saeko]

Not to mention that the diamond industry (the mining one that is ala debeers) is absolutely TERRIFIED of cultured stones and takes every opportunity to trash them, saying that they're "not as good as natural stones"...

Because... They cost less?

It's certainly not because they look any different unless you're an expert in gemstones with good-enough gear to do some very specific testing. Certainly no consumer is going to be able to notice the difference.

But it's all just a big ego trip anyway - "my wallet is bigger than your wallet because I can drop (insert number here) dollars on a hunk of carbon)."

N.

Good time to get rid of the old industry

[photonic]

I think I saw a documentary at Discovery Channel about some Russian company that already produces the machines for some years (could be this company [wired.com]). According to the show the traditional diamond industry was so worried that they developed an expensive laser system to discriminate the artificial ones from the natural ones. They could then issue a certificate of 'garanteed blood money' (TM). As a hollywood star/gangsta rapper you of course want to make sure that your hard earned money is well spent on some evil warlord [bbc.co.uk] somewhere in Africa.

It's paradoxically a non-paradox

[Gopal.V]

But they stand a lot to lose, with these diamonds made in a lab. They'll probably try to say that unless a diamond came from the ground, it isn't real...
To Quote :

Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid.
....

Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect.
....

He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem, but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and a stack of dried habra leaves to copy them out on to, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way.

Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite sure what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it.

All of which illustrates the point ... umm.. I'm sure it does.. A diamond is just a container of the I'm rich attitude (or if you see enough DeBeers ads that is translated as I love/care about you ). Lose the content and it's just an empty box.

Actually too perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Real natural diamonds have natural flaws. These don't.

As for me, if a girl requires a natural diamond for my hand in marriage then she can keep walking. True love is worth more than all the diamonds in the world.

Re:Excellent

[kfg]

. . .the larger the diamond is, the more likely there's a significant impurity in it. Impurities drive down the price of diamonds significantly.

Which they have because they are created in an impure environment. Even with current technology one of the ways to identify a man made diamond is that it's "too pure" and "too perfect."

Thus DeBeers again have managed to have it both ways. Purity drives up the cost of a natural diamond, but makes a man made diamond worth less.

You're trying to apply logic to the matter.

Silly boy.

KFG

Re:unfortunately

[Golias]

If this really is a marketing thing, maybe it's high time for some counter-marketing.

I, for one, would very much prefer a man-made diamond.

A pretty rock which somebody found in a hole is nice, but a man-made diamond is a testament to the wonders of modern engineering.

I would love it if some company were to start selling high-dollar jewelry made exclusively with man-made gems. Call them "artisan crafted" stones or something.

If DeBeers can run a few ads around Valentine's Day to create the illusion that mined stones are worth more than they really are, it seems to me somebody could do the same thing to elevate the perceived value of the man-made ones.

Play the angles just right, and you will have women refusing to consider accepting flawed, irregular, "natrual" stones (which were probably dug up using child labor) as a gift, insisting on the "real" lab-made diamonds, which are perfect.

Re:Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... no. Lots of men do not like the artificially pumped up version. And I'm not talking about only the pseudo intellectuals claiming they do in an attempt to pull unexpanded females - when the Sun in the UK had a poll over whether they should have artificially enhanced women as topless models on Page 3, the readers voted no quite convincingly.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe I'm just a geek, but buying a diamond made in a special machine seems infinitely more awesome than getting one the old-fashioned way. And there's less bad politics involved.

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[epine]

And every person who buys (or proudly displays) a natural diamond (either first hand or bargain bin) helps to maintain this social order, in much the same way that the use of illicit drugs consolidates a certain kind of social order in the countries who provide those drugs.

I'd be the last person to claim that a person who buys a diamond is responsible for the crimes of those involved in the diamond production chain. Nevertheless, my personal ethics are that I'll have nothing to do with natural diamond gemstones.

I haven't purchased a Hallmark card in twenty years either. Which leaves me with a lot more time to post on slashdot. If the average slashdot post were about 100 times better, it might have been a fair trade.

Re:Excellent

[ReidMaynard]

...something else will become common to replace them as a means of proving your desperation for a piece of ass...

Something like a full tank of gasoline.

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't know exactly what the grandparent post was getting at, but, as for me, why the fuck would I want to buy someone else's piece of paper for ten fucking dollars or whatever when I can just print up my own for practically nothing? Seriously, the lengths people will go to to spend money on worthless crap is simply amazing. I mean, I'm not exacly innocent in this area either, but being at least a little aware of how ridiculous it is to spend money on stuff like that is a good thing IMO.

Re:Excellent

[djmurdoch]

plus I don't think man made diamonds are ever going to eclipse natural ones for jewelry, there is just no cache (can't be bothered to find the accented e at the end of that word) attached to them.

It's "cachet", no accent.

If you think manmade diamonds won't be as popular as natural ones, look at cultured pearls. There's very little cachet to naturally occurring pearls.

Re:Diamond market will not collapse

[k-sound]

I agree with you there, nothing will change. The worth of any item is the amount of money that someone is willing to pay for it. e.g. a painting by Van Gogh is worth millions even though it's just paint and cloth and nowadays it would be easy to make an exact replica that is just as pretty.

Even if all diamond prices would drop, this wouldn't save us any money when we buy presents. Our girlfriends and wives would demand something else that is bloody expensive and probably kick our asses if even considered giving jewelry made with something as cheap as diamond.

The only thing I am excited about is how mass-produced diamond will change our lives for ever.

At last chance for cheap quality heatsinks

[zenst]

We all know diamonds conduct heat uber well so how long before we can have a diamond heatsink, you know case moders dream of these things ;).

Re:unfortunately

[gothfox]

Sorry, but it's not the diamond itself, it's the act of spending shitloads of money on them is what matters.

So, make them price higher than DeBeers crap and you've got yourself a winner.

Dying Business Model

[camusflage]

Debeers will survive, as they will adjust their business model to accomodate this.

Let me get this straight.. DeBeers will survive because they will adjust their business model? If they follow our favorite poster children for business model obviated by technology, they'll claim buying created diamonds is stealing, sue anyone wearing created diamonds, and legislate a ban on creating diamonds, despite a multitude of non-infringing uses, as any created diamond can be used for jewelry. Then, they'll introduce the "Diamond Plus" created diamond, with lots of crap visibly included in it making it worthless for jewelry, impairing durability for industrial uses, and deteriorating the heat transfer abilities. Because "Diamond Plus" is blessed by DeBeers though, it's the only thing most people can buy.

Re:unfortunately

[Calroth]

I would love it if some company were to start selling high-dollar jewelry made exclusively with man-made gems. Call them "artisan crafted" stones or something.

Back in the day, the only way to get pearls was to find them in the wild. So you'd get people diving around the place, digging up oysters to get at the pearls. Then someone had the bright idea of farming pearls. Great idea! We can make as many pearls as we like, we can guarantee their quality, etc.

Now, the status quo didn't like this, tried to get it banned, etc. etc. But the point of this post (yeah, we're getting there!) is that the pearl farmers managed to find a name for their "artificial" goods that sounded appealing: cultured pearls. People liked the name and they liked the idea, and the rest is history.

Cultured diamonds, anyone?

Blood diamonds

[tepples]

a "good" natural diamond, which won't glow, and a "bad" manufactured diamond, which is "too perfect".

Natural diamonds can be blood diamonds [wikipedia.org]. Cultured diamonds aren't. How does this make natural diamonds "better" than cultured diamonds?

Re:Diamond market will not collapse

[Vellmont]

1) DeBeers can launch a new marketing ploy and sell their diamonds as naturally forming diamonds compared with man-made diamonds.


This will only work if they can do two things (and they need to do BOTH of them). Convince people that a man-made diamond is somehow inferrior (possible, but I have my doubts). And more importantly, tell the difference between man-made and mined diamonds. So far DeBeers has been able to do this with expensive equipment. Don't hold your breath that this can continue though. If the diamond makers can make diamonds that are indistinguishable from mined diamonds in large quantities for cheaper than mined diamonds, the game is over.


Debeers will survive, as they will adjust their business model to accomodate this.

They'll probbably survive, they'll just be a MUCH smaller company that makes far less money.

Re:From the source

[bornholtz]

Remember, it isn't romantic unless it was formed underground millions of years ago and dug out by low wage third world workers.

No, it isn't romantic unless you spend the DeBeers required two months salary on the thing.

Re:Blood diamonds

[Nexx]

I think your sarcasm detector is offline :)

Re:Excellent

[Rasta Prefect]

DeBeers are the biggest bunch of capitalist fucks outside

Off topic, but why is anyone who acts greedy always denounced on Slashdot as a "Capitalist"? Capitalism is generally characterized by a free market - the DeBeers corporation is a Cartel that controls the supply of diamonds to maintain an artificially high price. This is about as far from a free market as you can get.

Same for Enron really - They're not capitalists, they're con men.

Re:Excellent

[nelsonal]

Its rarity is another big reason for its value. Al was once more valuable than gold (one of the French kings had an Al goblet) before the modern refining process was developed. People tend to ascribe high worth to things they cannot have.

Re:From the source

[sugar and acid]

Which all just highlights how shallow and unromantic the jesture actually is.

Re:Excellent

[hachete]

Capitalism is about the raising of capital, the selling and buying of shares for example, so that people can raise money to finance an enterprise. The enterprise can then make money return profit to the investor. How the enterprise makes money is, within legal and moral restraints, up to the enterprise. This has only a loose connection with the concept of a "free market" which is merely a sort of moral stricture on how to make money which is often ignored/adhered dependant on how much money the enterprise is making at the time.

So, DeBeers and Enron raise(d) capital on the open market therefore they are capitalists. You can't exclude them because they're morally reprehensible capitalists. You may want to exclude all capitalists on this basis. So, I reiterate, deBeers are a big bunch of capitalist fucks. On the one hand, they play fast and loose with the "free market" and, on the other, they're just bastards with incredibly crap labour policies amongst their many crimes.

h.

P.S. I always thought the "free market" was an illusion dreamt up by Adam Smith. After all, laudanum was widely used then.

P.P.S BTW, it's interesting how imperialists use the concept of freemarkets as a stick to beat others but often ignore it when it suits them - witness recent US steel subsidies, Freemarketering during the Irish Potato famine etc etc.

Re:Excellent

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because in the real world, the behavior of companies like Enron and DeBeers is where capitalism leads without government regulation. Free-market ideologues like to tell us that "the market will take care of it," but very often, it doesn't.

Re:From the source

[srleffler]

Unfortunately, not.

Re:From the source

[Lisandro]

You haven't been dating a lot lately, have you? Try explaining that to a woman...

Re:The value is the value, not the stone

[QMO]

same thing with food.
We could all get by on beans and rice, but the percieved value on meats, sweet fruits, spices, bread with leavening, etc. makes an industry out of producing them and drives the price up.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

And it will be so bloody easy to give everything a diamond coat, won't it? How do you propose that, growing a diamond around everything? gluing a layer of diamond dust around things?

As my materials prof said, "You can't make a coat hanger out of a diamond. The fucking thing won't bend." He also had a great story about the dowry one of his friends was asked to fill by the parents of the man marrying his daughter... wanted a shirt made of fine silk with buttons made of diamonds. Including the hooks.