Text 12112, 95 rader
Skriven 2008-03-09 11:45:35 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 12075 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Stability is security
=============================
Hello Robert,

On Saturday March 08 2008 18:30, you wrote to me:

 MV>> Synthesysing is only commercially attractive for industrial diamonds.
 MV>> The very small ones found on diamond saw blades and the like.

 RB> You're out of date, Michiel. That's what I thought too, but it doesn't
 RB> apply anymore. There was a nice article on this some time back in C&EN
 RB> (the American Chemical Society weekly).

Getting out of date is the sad fate of all of us old faths. :-(

 RB> The main problem is synthesizing _white_ diamonds, since apparently
 RB> even traces of foreign ions produce coloration. Yellow diamonds are
 RB> apparently relatively easy to synthesize, and there's at least one
 RB> factory doing that in Florida, making mostly stones up to around one
 RB> carat in weight.

Interesting.

All right, so replace "diamonds" with "white diamonds" and redoo.

 MV>> OTOH there is the demand. As someone remarked.  "women want pretty
 MV>> things made of it".  Well, women are fickle. What if the demand
 MV>> collapses because women decide that from now on they no longer
 MV>> want a ring of gold, but that they want a ring of Tungsten
 MV>> instead?

 RB> I think that possibility ranges slightly below aliens landing and
 RB> turning everything into gold.

You never know. Fashion is hard to predict. Things can go in or out of fashion
overnight. The fact that gold has been a covetted posession for thousands of
years is no guarantee that it still will be so next year. Who still uses silver
for eating utensils? "Everyone" uses stainless steel these days for the simple
reason that it is better (sharper knives), it is cheaper and more durable than
silver.

Gold is inert, but it does waer and scracth when used for rings, so maybe some
day woman *will* prefer tungsten over gold. Or maybe some day someone will find
a way to make a real diamond ing. Not a gold ring with a stone, but a ring made
completely of diamond. Would that not put a significant dent in the demand for
gold?

 RB>>> RSA isn't what it used to be, as it's now part of black Africa
 RB>>> with all the term implies,

 MV>> Gold is gold and diamonds are diamonds. It should not matter in
 MV>> who's hands the mines are.

 RB> It shouldn't, but it does. You need some infrastructure and stability
 RB> for large-scale mining.

Most of the infrastructure is still there, Besided, you do not want to mine it
as fast as you can. Thet would flood the market and spoil it. You want a
trickle rather than a flow.

 RB>>> and the gold and diamond mines are starting to approach
 RB>>> exhaustion.

 MV>> That may be a better explanation.

 RB> It's an additional one.

One way or another: that collegues prediction that the gold and the diamonds
would buy them a future with eternal richness did not come true.

 MV>> So, apart from the fact that I do not poses much gold, I have an
 MV>> old wedding ring somewhere and there may be a few milligram to be
 MV>> scraped off from old printed circuit boards in the junk box, no, I
 MV>> will not give you my gold.

 RB> Now you disappoint me... and I had _so_ hoped to shovel those gold
 RB> coins into my locker ;-)

Sorry. Can not accomodate you there. If all goes well I will heve kittens next
year though. You can have one if you want.

http://www.vlist.eu/fotos/tijgercursor.jpg

 MV>> I still do not have a satisfactory answer to my question. Seems
 MV>> there isn't one.

 RB> Depends on what you call "satisfactory" several thousand years of
 RB> history are pretty convincing to me.

Or what I call an explanation.  It is like asking "why do things fall down" and
you tell me to jump off a cliff if I believe things do not fall down.


Cheers, Michiel

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