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Mathematician Theorizes a Crystal As Beautiful As A Diamond
Roland Piquepaille writes "Why are diamonds so shiny and beautiful? A Japanese mathematician says it's because of their unique crystal structure and two key properties, called 'maximal symmetry' and 'strong isotropic property.' According to the American Mathematical Society (AMS), he found that out of all the crystals that are possible to construct mathematically, just one shares these two properties with the diamond. So far, his K4 crystal exists only as a mathematical object. And nobody knows if it exists — or if it can be synthesized."
A Japanese mathematician has been found dead in his laboratory. Police say they suspect the killers to be jewelry-wearing silhouettes.
just as the price of diamonds are threatened by artificial sources, questions about funding evil regimes, and anger at diehard debeers monopolies, promising that men can give women what they want for only $10 someday, this mathematician a**hole comes along with a totally new need-to-have impossible-to-obtain subtance that guys must fork over big bucks for
curse you, mathematics!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The reason diamonds are so beautiful is that every one of them represents gallons and gallons of blood and broken bones laying in the bottom of a diamond mine. Nothing is quite as shiny as pure human misery.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
... and only because it doesn't cost as much? I hope not, but I could imagine that. It makes me sick how brainwashed some people are in this regard (let alone others).
Because of all the dirt surrounding the diamond industry, I will never buy one, and when/if I propose to my girlfriend she's getting a ring with any gem other than a diamond. (And not because I'm some cheap-ass.)
Of course, any woman that doesn't accept you as life-partner because you didn't spend enough money on her engagement item is superficial, materialistic trash anyway.
To get things out of the way: Yes, I am structural chemist, I did RTFA and I am not a native english speaker, so please bear with my broken english.
I don't want to comment so much on the mathematical part of the paper, which might be interesting, but on the chemistry, which is non-sensical.
First of all the style of the article is very un-scientific. Note how often he mentions how pretty this crystal structure is. This is completely subjective and I don't see how this structure is prettier than many others. There is many fascinating structures and I don't think this or the diamond lattice are the most fascinating ones.
Then the assumption that the prettyness of diamond is a direct result from the crystal structure is silly. Someone else noticed that Silicium (and also Germanium and Tin) have exactly the same crystal structure - and they are not "pretty".
He doesn't mention space group nor atomic positions, which are absolutely fundamental when talking about a crystal structure.
Now even if the crystal would form like he describes (with 1/3rd double bonds), there is just no way this would ever look anything like a diamond. The electronic structure is completely different - diamond is an insulator, a classic dielectric material, whereas this, due to its double bonds and it's extendef pi-electron system, would be a classical conductor. It would probably look like graphite.
But, and this is the worst point, which even someone who only did very basic (highschool?) chemistry should immediately note, the compound can never form in this way. That's the first thing you learn about double bonds: they're flat or nearly flat. Admittedly, in fullerene and carbon nano-tubes, there is a certain curvation (making them not as stable as graphite), but if you look at this crystal structure, the double bonds have a dihedral angle of about 90 degrees. It's totally impossible to obtain this compound and everybody with scientific education should know this. The molecular orbitals can't form this way.
All in all I have no idea how it comes that this non-scientific non-sensical article is published by the AMS. Maybe you could make something out of the math part, but all the babble about prettiness and chemistry has to go.
Why give a gem ring at all ? Give a simple ring, made of gold, with inscription inside, which comes visible and glows red when heated in fire.
Yes, buy a wedding ring from Mordor Jewelers, Inc., and you'll never have to worry about your significant other abandonging you ! Guaranteed to be less evil than DeBeers.
Mordor Jewelers Wedding Ring - because she's your precioussss !
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Actually, if this wasn't already part of a PR coup, it will become one very soon. "Scientist proves that diamonds are the prettiest existing crystals" is a great way to remind people to buy diamonds, and give them a good excuse for conspicuous consumption too.
The part about another crystal which could theoretically be as pretty, only it doesn't exist (and, as another poster noted, can't possibly exist because electrons aren't shared that way, plus it would be opaque) is just that extra bit of "science" to make it easier to swallow. It lets people feel that they've connected the dots themselves to reach your conclusion.
I mean, "scientist proves that diamonds are the prettiest possible thing in the universe" is a superlative, plus you're feeding people your message a bit heavy handed. Some will resist it. "Scientist proves that only one thing could be prettier, except it doesn't exist in nature" lets people go, "haha, silly scientist, but in the meantime, out of the things one can actually buy, diamonds are the prettiest, right?" Only now it's their own conclusion, and they won't fight it. In fact, they'll feel all smug and smart about it.
Sad to say, that's how PR works.
PR isn't marketing. PR is marketing's evil stealthy brother. It loves to masquerade as news, science studies, etc. Marketing plants the seeds, but PR ploughs your mind first.
Marketing just goes and tells you "Buy Mars chocolate bars, they're great." PR comes and tells you, "Scientists prove that chocolate is good for you! Valuable enzymes found in cocoa beans!" (Except, what they don't tell you, those enzymes are no longer present in chocolate.) That was an actual PR stunt sponsored by Mars.
Marketing just tells you "The suit is back! Buy Men's Warehouse suits, they look all professional and stuff!" PR goes and tells you "The suit is back! Here's a ton of interviews with managers swearing that they'd never hire someone who doesn't wear a business suit 24/7." That was an actual PR stunt debunked that was linked to even on Slashdot.
So, anyway, they write some piece of news and then carpet bomb sites and newspapers with it. A lot of newspapers, especially local ones, are even happy to just print whatever PR sends them, because it's written well and it's more interesting than local "raccoon found in Mr Smith's car" stuff. So pretty much any PR agency can get you in those. A really good one can get you on TV and on Reuters. Those tend to be a lot more expensive.
And faked scientific studies aren't new stuff either. A _lot_ of PR stuff is published as stuff backed by science and (pseudo)maths. The way that goes is, some PR hack writes some pseudo-science babble. It doesn't have to make any sense. It can add different units, or claim that a theoretical crystal is pretty when the electron structure would make it a metal, and thus look like Tin. It doesn't matter. If you can spot that, you're not in their target demographic anyway. Then it starts fishing for people with a Dr or Prof title who'll sign it. A lot say "fuck off", but eventually one has nothing to lose, noone takes him seriously anyway, and he could use the money. He'll take the pie in the face for their money.
Now I'm not saying that this particular paper is necessarily PR. It could be, but it also could be just someone who wanted to see his name in a journal. But even if it wasn't written as PR for the diamond cartel, that cartel could very easily use it as PR if they need some. Far from sending someone to kill him, they're probably happy right now.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You seem to be assuming that diamonds are given to convey wealth from one person to another, in which case you would be correct, diamonds don't have a pragmatic worth anywhere close to what you pay for them.
But it is precisely that quality which makes them useful. In forming trust relationships humans have developed a number of ways to indicate "I'm a person you can trust and spend effort/time/resources on me because I will reciprocate."
One excellent way to do this is for a person to give something that was personally costly, but has little actual value to the receiver (other than the trust value it conveys).
So why not just give something with actual value/utility to the person? It would cost the giver the same right? Well as counterintuitive as it seems, it's to protect the giver. If we gave items that had actual value then there would be a high temptation to seek out trust relationships then just keep it and move on to the next person. Now you may be thinking, you can resell diamonds, but as anyone who has tried to unload an engagement ring knows, the only chance you have to resell it for anywhere near the purchase price is to sell it directly to another suitor.
It's the same thing with flowers I imagine, costly but little utilitarian value.
And given the differences in the sexes it makes sense that men will have evolved to feel good about giving expensive gifts, and women in receiving them, as a means of establishing a cooperative relationship where you can have some confidence that the other person can be trusted not to take advantage of you.
So whether it's diamonds, pearls, gold, extravagant chocolates, 8 dollar greeting cards, flowers or what have you, there will always be a use for gifts that are both costly to the giver and of little real worth to the receiver as a way to either establish or maintain trust (which is why women get so incensed if you forget to give a nice anniversary gift, to her it has profound implications for the state and future of your relationship). In other words, it's an artifact of the arms race that is sexual reproduction.