Yep - silicon carbide is very cool. It's weakly birefringent, which can be noticeable in larger gems, but the refractive index is larger than that of diamond, and the dispersion is greater too.
No matter from whence your gems come, the nuclei were largely forged at the heart of a star, same as everything but the hydrogen in your body.
The only people to whom I recommend natural stones are those with a connection to the earth or to a specific place. Geologists have a soft spot for natural diamonds. When considering an engagement ring for my now-wife, I spent a lot of time looking at sapphires from Montana. Only the risk of shattering them in a tension setting kept me from going that route.
The final thing that nudged me into synthetic stones was looking into the open-pit Cripple Creek gold mine. The environmental destruction we create in search of precious materials is considerable. Synthetic stones are made from carbon, sand, and electric power, all comparatively easy on the planet.
Diamonds are cool. So are lots of other choices. Look around; it's neat.
Apparently moissanite just came off patent protection last year so it is an even better option now than when some of those resources were created.
Both pretty but I can't see myself spending much on either.
Anyway I think they use carbon for its electrical properties, not the strength.
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-turning-nuclear-w...
You want to make a long lasting low power nuclear battery? Go for it. But don't try to trick people into thinking you are doing anything about nuclear waste.
The nuclear waste that causes problems is the type with neutron decay that is able to activate nearby elements. That is tricky to dispose of, and difficult to store.
According to the article I linked, it does need to be safely stored, since it's dangerous to touch or ingest, and it needs that storage for a long period of time.
Cutting and polishing, however, should be comparable to any other gemstone.
"...a...what-a-nite?"
"A Mossainite. Artificial, spurious, not-genuine and it's worth....fuck all"
The "diamond alternative" meme is becoming increasingly popular with our generation, such that I predict that in a few generations nobody will care to buy "real" diamonds for engagement purposes. When this happens, the price of diamonds will fall dramatically (if it hasn't already by that point).
Diamonds are so overrated.
when I see women boasting with their ground diamond jewelry they are telling me couple of things: a) they are a bit ignorant; b) they have sheepish crowd mentality; c) they put too much emphasis on what others thing about themselves, which just shows other personality issues; d) and most importantly they are willingly supporting genocide and enslavement for all above
which is OK, good to know immediately who you are dealing with
The best one seems to be Moissanite, which also has the rather pedestrian name of silicon carbide. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite
Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/
Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-moissanite/
Moissanite can be 90% cheaper than equivalent diamond, not just 30%.