All that lasts forever not diamonds anymore

All that glitters is not gold, they say. Who cares, if some, at least, of this non-gold stuff is made of diamonds? And diamonds are forever. Well, all these verities of the 20th century are going down the drain in the 21st. Researchers at the North Carolina State University have reportedly found a way to convert amorphous carbon into something harder than diamonds. They claim, further, they can create a carat of diamonds in 15 seconds. One carat is 200mg. Give these guys a couple of years and — let’s also get a bit scientifically quantitative about this — they will churn out four tonnes of diamonds with just one plant running continuously.

They can set up industrial-scale plants, many of them. Which girl will then want, as a token of eternal commitment, a rock that would have become as common as trolls on the social media? What will happen to poor De Beers? Is this sort of research at non-Ivy League schools a secret socialist plot to undermine the spangled elite? Donald Trump, where are you? Next, they will be after gold. After having debased paper currency by printing a trillion dollar worth of notes, all in the name of saving the economy, next they will figure out how to duplicate gold. For scientists, after all, it is just a metal with 79 protons with an equal number of electrons arranged in six shells around it. Time we licensed scientists?