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Under really really high pressure and temperature, graphite can turn into diamond, right? And atom bombs produce really really high pressure and temperature?
So why not bury a vast amount of graphite around a bomb (either a fusion bomb or a run of the mill fission bomb). Set the thing off, wait till
it all cools down and just pick up all the huge and beautiful diamonds. It might be a little radioactive, but for industrial purposes this hardly matters and for jewelry, well who cares if you've got diamond? Besides, this goes away after a while anyway.
Perhaps it would be wise to separate the graphite into pockets with some sand or so in between before the explosion, so you don't end up with a single huge megadiamond that nobody could pull out of the ground.
It might (and I carefully choose the word "might" because I realize this is just speculation and I don't want you to doubt my credibility) even be possible to make use of abandoned coal mines, where large amounts of graphite are already naturally in the ground. It might just be possible to lower a bomb into an old mineshaft and turn a coal mine into a diamond mine! So again we can make use of recycled materials. Even the bombs can be recycled - there probably are still a few cold-war era nukes rusting away in old missile silos.
It's just a thought. But if we want it, we could put our hands together and make something beautiful. Everybody loves diamonds?
Operation Plowshare
http://en.wikipedia...Operation_Plowshare
US Nuclear explosives program for construction [jmvw, Jul 19 2006]
Russians Making Diamonds
http://www.scienced...08/990817092046.htm
It takes about 50 hours to grow a one-carat diamond, he said. [baconbrain, Jul 19 2006]
Diamond formation on meteorite impact
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/meteor.htm
[jmvw, Jul 19 2006]
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[jmvw], diamonds aren't rare enough for
this to be economically viable. besides,
there are already easier ways to make
artificial diamonds that are chemically and
structurally the same that aren't
radioactive. |
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//It might be a little radioactive,// |
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i have to agree on that one [cuit]. |
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Wonderful idea and technology, generally. I mean, instead of a trash compactor, you could just have some little hydrogen bombs that can be used in the kitchen to compress refuse. |
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Great idea! All these thousands of warheads are just sitting idle around the world going mouldy. Glad someone's finally thought of a good reason to let them off. |
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you'd probably do better to make different, rarer gemstones like emeralds. But the concept is delightfully halfbaked, enough that I'm willing to overlook the environmental impact. |
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[+] because it's better than using the bombs for what they were intended for. And for //It might be a little radioactive// - hey, glow-in-the-dark diamonds! |
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Don't be mean to your woman. Why make her sulk? Give her one of our diamonds - she'll turn into the Hulk! |
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Thanks all. Your feedback so far has been fabulous. Economic viability, a tagline, poetry and a reminder of the ruthless exploitation of diamond workers in Sierra Leone. Not bad at all. |
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Now what if we combine this with nuclear testing that's being done anyway? India, Pakistan and North Korea all might have some tests planned in the near future. Perhaps we can contact these countries and see if they would mind doing their tests in an a coal rich area, or else if we would move some graphite into the soil near their test site? |
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/there probably are still a few cold-war era nukes rusting away in old missile silos./ |
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A few? How about a few tens of thousands? |
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I like this idea. If only because it would flood the market with cheap radioactive diamonds. This should crash the diamond market in a few years and put a bunch of thugs out of business. |
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One Shiny Shiny Bun for you. |
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Man-made diamonds are cheap and easy to produce(whatever De Beers tries to tell you), H bombs are expensive and an ecological disaster, wherever you explode them. |
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Big, radioactive fishbone for you. |
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Bun for halfbaked creativity. Otherwise, this is going to wind up with some poor, half-naked guy breathing from a garden hose in a pool of radioactive water in a coal mine at midnight. |
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[baconbrain] No, that will not happen, I am never drinking mescal again. |
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Thanks, G_C. I needed a laugh. |
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Seriously, though. Diamonds are crystals. Don't they take time to form? Is a short blast going to give the conditions required? |
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I'll go do some research. |
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I'm back with a quote. "It takes about 50 hours to grow a one-carat diamond." See link to Russians. |
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So this probably won't work, but it will tick off the Russians. Conservatives are going to buy into it in a big way. |
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//and who would probably blow you up for trying to horn in on their little cartel// - No they wouldn't. They've got TNT, I've got nukes. |
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//Diamonds are crystals. Don't they take time to form? Is a short blast going to give the conditions required?// |
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Diamond typically forms during meteorite impact. See link. |
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I have a hunch is that if the pressure is great enough and the heat sufficient, graphite can be crushed into diamond, which has a higher density, very quickly. And we have more pressure then the people at UFL. Pressure is not something we're short on. |
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The Russians already had a scheme to use bombs to dispose of chemical waste. PCB, dioxin, that ilk. I like this because of the coal mine possibilities, and my general fondness for schemes using spare nuclear bombs. |
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Bun for the idea. I think Iraq and Iran have the perfect mixture of elements contained in their sand. I'll call the president and ask him if we can start there. "When life throws you IEDs, make diamonds!" |
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So, where/how do I buy one of those UF/Russian diamonds? After reading that article, I really find myself wanting one. Hooray for technology. |
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//and my general fondness for schemes using spare nuclear bombs// So *that's* how you get the Bungco vote. Expect nuclear ideas henceforth. |
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baconbrain is right. You'll create carbon vapor with this, and at best, a few micro diamonds the size of dust, the same as with giant impacts. |
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From a couple of meteorite sites. "Impact diamonds were found in glass bombs and highly shocked fragments of the suevite. They reach sizes up to 100 µm." And, "The largest was 0.9 mm. in diameter." |
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That is bloody small. I'm taking off my creativity croissant. I dislike doing other people's research. |
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Geez. You give me a roll and just when I'm about to bite in you take it away? You tell me diamonds might not form in a short blast and I find for you that they do and you use that to tell me you're doing my research? |
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Meteors hitting the surface of the earth are not necessarily the same as underground nuclear explosions in a vast area of carbon. I think that close to the core of the explosion, everything will be vaporized. Far away from it, things will just be jostled. Somewhere in between there will be enormous huge diamonds! |
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Superman can apparently crush a lump of coal with his hand and turn it into a diamond. Considering what his residence looks like, I think this is his hobby. |
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[jmvw] that's ice! ice i say! you should read
up on your fortress of solitude lore. i mean
really! shame on you! |
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// that's ice! ice i say! // Yet he routinely visits wearing only jammies and a cape... |
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[cowbell], he can go into space wearing
only jammies and a cape. why would
antarctica even be considered a possible
problem? |
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In the new movie, his fortress is made of crystals. |
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no, it's made of crystals that have taken on
the form of their surroundings. hence ice.
the reason the island started to grow was
that it was dropped into a trench, and it hit
rock. |
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So he squeezes water with his hand until it turns to ice? |
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i'm not following you. you'll have to
explain how the whole ice to diamond
works. |
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Hmm. I don't think Superman obeys the laws of thermodynamics, but maybe we can use the name kryptonite for our radioactive diamonds. |
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Aside from the more obvious problems, the neutrons given off by the bomb, would break up the crystalline structure. I'm no expert but as a result you'll probably create worthless cloudy diamonds, though they might be strange colours as a result of all the exotic impurities. |
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Despite that you still get a bun from me, cos I'd love to work at that diamond factory. |
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So the giant dildos that make up the fortress of solitude are ice? |
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yes [gc], they are now and always have
been. |
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And the poles that Batman and Robin slide down? |
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Wonder Woman's invisible plane? |
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transparent steel. i've never actually read
wonder woman though. |
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I think it would take about $500,000,000 to make an atomic bomb (that's not a very well educated estimate). And, if the diamonds were very large, as you said, they would probably sell for about $3,000 per carat (again, not a well educated guess). So, In order to make a profit, you would have to have enough material to make about 160,000 carats of diamond. But, you would have to pay for the material, too. But doing this would probably decrease diamond cost which would decrease your profit after doing it for a while. |
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[apocalyps956] (what an appropriate name) 160,000 Carats is about 70lbs, or 35 kg, a big sack of coal. The average price of coal from a mine is in the range of $50 per short ton (2000 lbs) so I think this is not really cutting into our profits. |
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Where on earth did you find the cost of making a nuclear bomb? I don't think we'd have to make them - let's first use up the existing rusty cold war nukes. |
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I agree it would be expensive. I think the main cost would be in setting aside a vast piece of land for the next few decades, during which it will be radioactive. It will cause ecological problems, sick and dying animals and possibly human disease. So that and maybe the cost of some PR campaigns to assuage the public (may not be necessary in North Korea). |
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But let's say the average coal mine size has a volume of 100 million tons and that we can turn 10% of that into diamond. That would be around 453 trillion carats, which if we manage to sell this before the diamond market catches on, could yield us around $136 quadrillion dollars ($136,077,711,000,000,000). |
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This might actually be profitable. Uh oh. |
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Next James Bond movie.. S.P.E.C.T.R.E steals another nuke and this time they mean business! |
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"Honey, it's only a *little* bit radioactive, and it's multi-purpose too! You can see your way through the dark..." |
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in the original superman the movie, if my memory serves me right, he created the fortress of solitude by throwing a crystal into the ice. That kinda reminds me of how a nanoassembler might work. It uses materials from the surroundings to make stuff. |
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You do realize that hydrogen bombs themselves are very expensive, right? |
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Existing cold war nukes are worthless. |
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1. Diamonds can be found at meteorite
impact sites, but are not the primary
source of diamonds. As the link you
added explains, it's not known if the
diamonds found at impact sites come
from the meteorite or from the impact.
Lastly, the diamonds formed are tiny
and useless for jewelry |
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2. Nuclear weapons do produce very
high temperatures, but do not produce
that high pressures, unless the
explosion is remarkably well capped.
Even here, it's not enough to produce
diamonds since the process requires
significant temp/pressure over *time*
to form. Diamonds need 10k
atmospheres (approx 1Gigapascal) of
pressure. |
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3. Using nuclear weapons is never
adviseable |
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Cold war nukes aren't worthless, they have the ability to contaminate the groundwater nearby their storage site and that is just priceless. |
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