It is surprising how one stone such a plain and simple structure can become so popular and desirable. This is the Diamond. "Diamond" comes from the Greek adamao, transliterated as "adamao", "I tame" or "I subdue". The adjective "adamas" was used to describe the hardest known substance, and eventually became synonymous with diamond. It is difficult to determine at what point in history the hardest known substance became diamond. "Adamas" may have previously referred to the next hardest mineral, corudium - the gem variety is sapphire - or to something else altogether. Tracing the history of diamond is complicated by this problems with names.
Taking a look in its inner structure may reveal why is this "simple" stone so important for the vanity of people. The interesting part is that the diamond contains mainly carbon, just like charcoal or graphite, but the difference comes from the way of arrangement of the atoms in the crystalline structure. Theoretically a perfect diamond crystal could be composed of one giant molecule of carbon.
Diamonds are known as the hardest of all gemstones and the hardest transparent substance. It is almost impossible to scratch the diamond surface, except for using another diamond for the purpose. It is in fact difficult to measure the hardness of diamond, because diamond must be used to measure its own hardness.
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