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The world's first man-made diamonds On a winter morning in December of 1954, Dr. H. Tracy Hall, a 35 year old scientist working in the Knolls GE research laboratory in Schenectady, NY, broke open a sample cell from the latest experiment in his three-year long efforts to make diamond from graphite. As he held the fragments up to the windows of the laboratory, his eyes caught the glint of sunlight reflecting off many tiny triangular faces. Tracy's heart began to beat wildly and his hands began to tremble. His legs grew weak and he had to find a place to sit down; Tracy realized that he had finally succeeded in making diamonds. |
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In 1797 Smithson Tennant conclusively proved that diamond was an allotropic form of carbon. If diamond and graphite were the same substance, would it not be possible to transform the one which was plentiful and cheap into the other highly prized form? For 150 years scientists, engineers and dreamers attempted to transform carbon into diamonds. The story of efforts to synthesize diamond is a tale of innovation, intrigue, error, danger, and at times downright chicanery and deception. Ultimately, it is the story of the triumph of an unlikely inventor in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. This is the story of Dr. Tracy Hall and his
role in the first repeatable diamond synthesis. |
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Read about Tracy Hall's role in the development of man-made diamond |
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