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Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:00 AM

Cold as ice

A broken engagement -- and a broken heart -- sent Tom Zoellner on a wild journey to understand the endless allure of the diamond.
By Ben Cosgrove

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  • Wednesday, July 19, 2006 08:25 AM

    Re: Decay of Diamonds

    Here's what Wikipedia has to say about that:

    "The diamond allotrope is metastable with respect to the graphitic phase under normal conditions; that is, graphite is thermodynamically favored over diamond (ΔG = −2.99 kJ / mol). However, the rate of conversion from diamond to graphite is extremely slow due to the presence of a large kinetic barrier to this rearrangement. It would take an extremely long time (possibly more than the age of the Universe) for an appreciable amount of diamond to decay into graphite."

    I guess a diamond is as close to forever as makes no difference.

    —tedol Read tedol's other letters

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