Being the hardest known natural material on earth, a diamond is meant to last forever but is that true? For sure it must be. In nature, they have been deep in the surface of the earth for a million years to date and their resistance to breakage from forceful impacts could not have a better measurement than the cataclysms, which occurred through the different eras that our planet has survived.
Diamonds are around ten times harder than steel, twenty times the compressive strength of granite, and two times harder than tungsten carbide, but ten times more wear-resistant compared with this. The first time diamonds were considered as an everlasting gem was in India, where volcanoes and alluvial deposits propitiated the creation of crystalline carbon.
A Sanskrit text from 296 BC describes the procedure used mining diamonds and recording its hardness properties along with luster and dispersion. The quality of the gems associated diamonds with divinity and their use became a common decoration in Indian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian temples.
In India, the color and shape of diamonds distinguished the different castes and diamond ownership was restricted accordingly. Only kings were allowed to own diamonds of all colors. In Persia, Zoroastrians used diamond as a symbol to find the path to enlightenment, while in Greece, Alexander the Great was astonished at the Valley of Diamonds, where giant snakes with deadly gazes guarded the valley floor studded with diamonds.
Actually, the four Cs measures the indubitable duration of diamonds: cut, clarity, carat, and color. From the balance among these factors, a diamond cannot only last forever, but its face value increases.
Cut refers to the form that a diamond is given that requires a precise geometric proportion to keep its hardness and beauty. Skilled cuts create different facets that determine the diamond’s final shape and brilliance. Popular diamond cuts include round, oval, pear, heart, emerald, marquise, and princess form.
Inclusions or flaws in a diamond determine its purity and clarity. Diamonds are extracted from deep beneath the earth, as mineral carbon might it may come with traces of other elements trapped in them, which gives each gem a unique natural characteristic. Diamonds are catalogued into levels of clarity that range from flawless, moving down to VVS (Very Very Slight), VS (Very Slight) and SI (Slightly Included).
Carat is the weight that measures the mass of a diamond, equivalent to 200 milligrams per carat. Carats are often confused with dimensions of a diamond, which is inaccurate because dimensions are influenced directly by the cut of a diamond rather that its weight. This means that a small diamond in appearance can have more carats than another diamonds of bigger surface dimensions.
Color is resulted from the nature of the diamond. Colorlessness diamonds is a term commonly used to indicate transparent diamonds, which color scale is in the range between D to Z, that some people just refer as “white diamonds”, but going from icy white to light yellow.
However, depending on flaws and inclusions in carbon, diamonds can take another rare color that makes them even more expensive gems. The most sought-after diamonds are pink, followed by blue that sometimes are confused with the Blue opaque Zephyrs or Ceylon.
