The Diamond Makers

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 258 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press
• Edition: Revised Edition August 28, 1999
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521654742
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521654746
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 13.6 ounces

Product Review
"Utterly absorbingHazen makes the story profoundly exciting, conveying the scientific passion of the researchers.It's a gem." The Washington Post

"Glittering prize.Read it and spread the word." New Scientist

"Hazen tells the very interesting and gripping story of the manufacture of artificial diamonds in this find book." Choice

"illustrate[s] some of the best attributes of science writing" Bloomsbury Review

"a first-class, fascinatingly well written history of the exciting developments that led to the creation of diamonds even from peanut butter." Science Books & Films

"Robert Hazen's The Diamond Makers is a compelling, nontechnical narrative covering centuries of history related to diamond, centered mostly around brilliant, often eccentric and controversial pioneers of research at high pressuresThe Diamond Makers is the first mahor publication to cover the whole period from the human point of view, while maintaining scientific integrityHazen gives a thorough and exciting account of the history of diamonds and the efforts to synthesize themAs one of the surviving diamond-makers, I an able to vouch for the thorough and open-minded interviews Hazen conducted." Physics Today

"this book will appeal to the interested laypersonIt was immensely satisfying to be able to put their entire story on context and have it come alive through Hazen's book." American Mineralogist

"There is virtually no way that The Diamond Makers could miss being an great work of great interest to geologists, mineralogists, gemologists, and science historians as well as the layman who enjoys a good reada fascinating bookThe story of diamond synthesis research is so excitingly told that any lay-person, even relatively young ones, would have a hard time putting it down once started and by the time he or she gets to the last page they will have painlessly picked up a lot of science and, most important, have come to realize that science can be pretty exciting stuff." Earth Sciences History

Product Description
Since time immemorial, we have treasured diamonds for their exquisite beauty and unrivaled hardness. Yet, most of the earth's diamonds lie deep underground and totally unaccessible to us--if only we knew how to fabricate them! In The Diamond Makers Robert Hazen vividly recounts the very human desire to exceed nature and create a synthetic diamond. Spanning centuries of ground-breaking science, instances of bitter rivalry, cases of outright fraud and self-delusion, Hazen blends drama and science to reveal the extraordinary technological advances and devastating failures of the diamond industry. Along the way, readers will be introduced to the brilliant, often eccentric and controversial, pioneers of high-pressure research who have harnessed crushing pressures and scorching temperatures to transform almost any carbon-rich material, from road tar to peanut butter, into the most prized of all gems. Robert M. Hazen is the author of fifteen books, including the bestseller, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy, which he wrote with James Trefil. Dr. Hazen has won numerous awards for his research and scientific writing.

Reader Reviews
People have been fascinated by diamonds for centuries, and scientists tried for about a century to produce them in a laboratory for about a century before they succeeded in a General Electric lab in 1954. This is the story of that quest. It is told with a liveliness and thoroughness quite unusual and delightful. Hazen describe the failed attempts of the early researchers, in some detail, and shows how one of the legends taught to me long ago as a child are bogus. Moissan could not have produced diamonds by the method he described. The story of Charles Parsons' (the inventor of the steam turbine) attempts was new to me and made me respect him all the more. Thirty years of failed attempts by one of the foremost mechanics of the early twentieth century showed the world just how challenging the synthesis was. Hazen gives a lively account of Percy Bridgeman's exploits in opening up the whole field of high pressure research to systematic study. His clever double-piston apparatus is clearly described, and I was entertained to learn how he published a couple of papers on how to measure pressure in it without divulging its geometry. The final breakthrough by Hall and coworkers at GE is described in some detail, and the controversy over credits and rewards is laid out for all it is worth. The personalities and their foibles and eccentricities of giants are always quite something. I hugely enjoyed this, and wound up sympathizing with Hall. Then Hazen goes into the modern developments of the scale-up to a quite profitable business, which is very impressive stuff. This is all still developing and changing decades later, and Hazen even includes some well-informed speculation on the importance of the newer vapor phase processes as well. I really enjoyed the fact that the book included lots of pictures and diagrams of the apparatus. Adds a lot. This is thrilling science and you'd have to be quite the cynic to think otherwise.