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What is Diamond ?
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Diamond is a native crystalline carbon that is the hardest known mineral. It is usually nearly colorless. When transparent and free from flaws it is highly valued as a precious stone. It is also used industrially, especially as an abrasive. Crystallized carbon produced artificially is also called diamond. The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek adamas ("invincible"). Their hardness and high dispersion of light make diamonds useful for industrial applications and jewelry.
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Where Do Diamonds Come From?
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Experiments and the high density of diamonds tell us that they crystallize at very high pressures. In nature this means that diamonds are created by geologic processes at great depth within Earth, generally more than 150 kilometers down, in a region beneath the crust known as the mantle. Other processes, explored later in this exhibition, bring diamonds to where people can find them.
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How is a diamond cut?
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A newly mined rough diamond looks more like a piece of glass washed up on the beach than like the polished gems sold in jewelry stores. Bringing out their beauty requires the skill and art of a trained diamond cutter.
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What is an "Ideal Cut"?
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Diamonds became popular as ornaments in jewelry in the 1400's and the different techniques and styles of diamond cuts were gradually developed over many years. The year of 1919 saw the greatest advancement in diamond cuts when the skills of Marcel Tolkowsky produced the Ideal cut for diamonds used as the American Standard (also known as the American Ideal Cut, Tolkowsky cut, and Tolkowsky Brilliant)
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Where does the word Gold come from?
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The word gold appears to be derived from the Indo-European root 'yellow', reflecting one of the most obvious properties of gold. This is reflected in the similarities of the word gold in various languages: Gold (English), Gold(German), Guld (Danish), Gulden (Dutch), Goud (Afrikaans), Gull (Norwegian) and Kulta (Finnish).
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What is Gold Carat?
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A Carat (Karat in USA & Germany) was originally a unit of mass (weight) based on the Carob seed or bean used by ancient merchants in the Middle East. The Carob seed is from the Carob or locust bean tree. The carat is still used as such for the weight of gem stones (1 carat is about 200 mg). For gold, it has come to be used for measuring the purity of gold where pure gold is defined as 24 carats.
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Why is gold measured in carat?
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This stems back to ancient times in the Mediterranean /Middle East, when a carat became used as a measure of the purity of gold alloys. The purity of gold is now measured also in terms of fineness, i.e parts per thousand. Thus 22 carat is 22/24th of 1000 parts = 916 fineness.
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Who owns most gold?
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If we take national gold reserves, then most gold is owned by the USA followed by Germany and the IMF. If we include jewellery ownership, then India is the largest repository of gold in terms of total gold within the national boundaries. In terms of personal ownership, it is not known who owns the most, but is possibly a member of a ruling royal family in the East.
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