That She’ll Love Forever… You’ve heard that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Now that you’re going to propose you have the huge job of picking out your soon-to-be wife’s new best friend. Bluenilecanada helps you take the guesswork out of choosing the perfect ring for your perfect girl.
In order to best utilize a diamond gemstone’s superlative material properties, a number of different diamond cuts have been developed. A diamond cut constitutes a more or less symmetrical arrangement of facets which together modify the shape and appearance of a diamond crystal. Diamond cutters must consider several factors, such as the shape and size of the crystal, when choosing a cut. The practical history of diamond cuts can be traced back to the Middle Ages, while their theoretical basis was not developed until the turn of the 20th century. Design creation and innovation continue to the present day: new technology—notably laser cutting and computer-aided design—has enabled the development of cuts whose complexity, optical performance, and waste reduction were hitherto unthinkable.
Diamond clarity is a quality of diamonds relating to the existence and visual appearance of internal defects of a diamond called inclusions, and surface defects called blemishes. Clarity is one of the four Cs of diamond grading, the others being carat, color, and cut.
Inclusions may be crystals of a foreign material or another diamond crystal, or structural imperfections such as tiny cracks that can appear whitish or cloudy. The number, size, color, relative location, orientation, and visibility of inclusions can all affect the relative clarity of a diamond. A clarity grade is assigned based on the overall appearance of the stone under 10x magnification.
The carat weight measures the mass of a diamond. One carat is defined as a fifth of a gram, or exactly 200 milligrams (about 0.007 ounce). The point unit—equal to one one-hundredth of a carat (0.01 carat, or 2 mg)—is commonly used for diamonds of less than one carat. All else being equal, the value of a diamond increases exponentially in relation to carat weight, since larger diamonds are both rarer and more desirable for use as gemstones.
Diamonds do not show all of their beauty as rough stones; instead, they must be cut and polished to exhibit the characteristic fire and brilliance that diamond gemstones are known for. Diamonds are cut into a variety of shapes that are generally designed to accentuate these features.
Diamond is the hardest known natural material and one of the two best known forms (or allotropes) of carbon, whose hardness and high dispersion of light make it useful for industrial applications and jewelry. (The other equally well known allotrope is graphite.)
Diamonds are specifically renowned as a mineral with superlative physical qualities — they make excellent abrasives because they can be scratched only by other diamonds, Borazon, ultrahard fullerite, or aggregated diamond nanorods, which also means they hold a polish extremely well and retain luster. About 130 million carats (26,000 kg) are mined annually, with a total value of nearly USD $9 billion. About 100,000 kg are synthesized annually. (more…)
Diamonds typically crystallize in the face-centered cubic crystal system (space group ) and consist of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms. The unit cell of diamond has a two atom basis at (0,0,0) and (1/4,1/4,1/4), which means half of the atoms are at lattice points and the other half are offset by (1/4,1/4,1/4), where 1 is the length of a side of the unit cell. Diamond’s density is 3.52 g·cm−3.
The tetrahedral arrangement of atoms is the source of many of diamond’s properties. The carbon atoms in Graphite, the other major allotrope of carbon, display a different (nontetrahedral) connectivity and as a result shows dramatically different physical characteristics: graphite is a soft, dark gray, opaque mineral. Other elements of the carbon group such as silicon crystalize like diamond. (more…)
![[Ask]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/ask.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Feed Me Links]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/feedmelinks.png)
![[Furl]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/furl.png)
![[Google]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[Ma.gnolia]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/magnolia.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.bluenilecanada.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)