The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the lab-grown variety

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by function_seven on Saturday July 26, 2025 @06:25PM (#44697397)

Diamonds sparkle a lot more brilliantly due to their high refractive index.

(Moissanite is even better, so it should be preferred over diamonds unless I’m overlooking some other difference in their attributes?)

But plain glass gems look comparatively bland when used as jewelry.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by mensetmanusman on Saturday July 26, 2025 @07:39PM (#44697777)

Moissanite scratchers much easier.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by function_seven on Saturday July 26, 2025 @08:12PM (#44697916)

Oh duh. I was so focused on optical qualities I didn’t even think about material ones.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by 0cf8612b2e1e on Saturday July 26, 2025 @10:07PM (#44698346)

I need a geologist to explain this one. Moissanite has a Mohs hardness of 9.5. I guess it is easier to scratch than a diamond, but the scratability should be indistinguishable between the two for all practical purposes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by jjmarr on Saturday July 26, 2025 @10:25PM (#44698420)

Not a geologist but Mohs hardness is an ordinal scale so the distance between 10 and 9 isn't well-defined. The numbers are defined as being specific minerals.

Diamond (10) is 4x as hard as corundum (9) which is 2x as hard as topaz (8).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale#Reference_minerals

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the... by cubefox on Saturday July 26, 2025 @11:14PM (#44698651)

Everything scratches easier than diamond. Moissanite is still very hard to scratch.

[ Parent | on HN ]