The biggest diamond in over a century is found in Botswana -- a whopping 2,492 carats

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 236 points – The biggest diamond in over a century is found in Botswana — a whopping 2,492 carats
apnews.com

The largest diamond found in more than a century has been unearthed at a mine in Botswana, and the country’s president showed off the fist-sized stone to the world at a viewing ceremony Thursday.

The Botswana government says the huge 2,492-carat diamond is the second-biggest ever discovered in a mine. It’s the biggest diamond found since 1905.

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Which billionaire is going to spend money on this rather than spending it on helping humanity?

If the money eventually gets to the people of Botswana then it could help them. Feels like a long shot though.

When was the last time a transaction involving a giant precious jewel benefited regular people?

Yeah, somebody in Botswana will benefit; somebody corrupt. Pennies on the dollar will trickle down, if it goes the way it normally does.

Look ma, a rock....

Please, I'd rather have man made stones as they are cheaper and require no slave labour

require no slave labour

Apparently this was mined in a Canadian-run "ethical diamond" mine with modern worker conditions, environment protections, and safety regulations. I was kinda surprised.

It was located using X-ray technology designed to find large, high-value diamonds.

Sounds like they're using tech at this mine.

Or nothing? Rings are decorations there's no need for them.

Diamonds are primarily used in industry, but again mainly man made

This is a gem quality one, too, and even most natural ones aren't.

Who really gives a flying fuck??

Kinda need diamonds to cut certain things. Have a diamond embedded steel plate ment for sharpening knives. Only cost $10 for 3 of em

Or any number of other interesting gems or metals - ammolite is a local specialty where I live, and it's a fossil at the same time. Or a zircon, if you just want to impress shallow people.

I just want to know what genius named carats and karats ostensibly the same thing, especially when both are related to jewellery, but one means purity and the other is just a measure of weight

It’s intentional to sow confusion. That way you just defer to the nice, good-looking sales person at your local jewelry store to tell you what is valuable and don’t question the cartel pricing and artificial scarcity.

Reminds me of how those malls would have two or three jewelry stores in the middle, right across from each other, and they were all owned by the same company!

There's worse: 1 Calorie = 1000 calorie

Isn't that some American BS? Every non American food I've had was measured in Kilocalories

I'm from France. Food packaging uses kcal but I've seen articles about diets and stuff use Cal.

The pet food lists kcals/can for whatever it's worth. I live in the US.

Some poor person probably got paid the whipping sum of $20 for finding that thing

I doubt the poor person in question was running a high-tech X-ray diamond finder.

I wonder what percentage of people at least skim the story before forming an opinion.

X-ray diamond finder

*rolls eyes* This is real life, not Minecraft!

That is a cartoonishly large diamond. Cut it into that stereotypical cartoon diamond shape!

Meanwhile the largest uncut synthetic diamond weights 150.42 carats (30.084 grams).

That's big enough for pretty much any usecase

Someone once described diamonds as nothing but space poop & it’s all I think about when I see ppl w diamond jewelry 😂💍💩☄️

I kind of think they should leave it like that.

They likely will! If touched it is then “cut” and less value. The raw “uncut” version is what will sell.

They said the 1905 one was cut into multiple gems?! Seems such a waste.

Eventually it’s how things go… basically dividing the wealth but ultimately we’re talking about bullshit carbon and shouldn’t be so concerned. Yet…

I mean, just as a scientific object it's fascinating. I'm not going to be shamed about caring just because other people care for stupid reasons, haha.

Just given the nature of diamonds and light, there are more interesting shapes. They could cut it into a simple cubic, but that wouldn't be very interesting and you would still have some substantial pieces left over to make other diamonds from. So the usual plan is to cut more or less the largest stone you can while avoiding any major flaws and using a cut that will display the properties of diamond in their best light, and then cutting the rest into diamonds that can be sold, as well. I believe there was a larger diamond found a while back that had two fairly large diamonds cut out of it because the nature of the uncut diamond made that more profitable and esthetically pleasing than if they had just cut a single larger piece.

Diamonds are interesting and can be pretty, but they're also valued for vastly more than their worth, and there are other very interesting options for jewelry that are neither as expensive nor as ethically dubious as many diamonds are.

And then the buyer will probably cut it into whatever number and carat of individual gems will sell for the most - or so I understand.

That's a Chaos Emerald. Botswana is about to get all of its fauna robotized.

Something something toast of Botswana.

Although infertile, the hybrid had a very active libido, mounting both ewes and nannies even when they were not in heat. This earned the hybrid the name Bemya or rapist. He was castrated when he was 10 months old because he was becoming a nuisance.

Welp

Cool, I can burn it to ash with the tools in my garage.

Diamonds are shiny/glittery and hard, that's about it.

And thermally conductive, and low-friction, and semiconducting. They are pretty neat, just for different reasons than people think.

Also, it wouldn't leave ash, because it's totally pure carbon, but that's just a nitpick.

Well, I could have gone into detail about their scientific and industrial value, but those aren't what massively inflates their perceived importance and price.

Nice precious rock the Botswanans found! I'm sure it would be preserved as it is, or if it's sold, that it would greatly benifit Botswana's economy

/s :(

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