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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter V who wrote (9284)	5/28/1998 3:22:00 AM
From: Marconi	Respond to of 18691

Hello Peter V: (off topic) cubic zirconia is titanium zirconate if I recall correctly--it is an exceptionally high index of refraction mineral as is diamond, but unlike diamond it is relatively soft like a hard glass diamond is head and shoulders the hardest material--it is rated at the top of the Moh scale at 10, but relatively speaking it should be closer to a 40 rating with corundum (aluminum oxide--garnet, ruby, sapphire, alundum, etc) being the nearest in hardness at 9--again if I recall correctly. I think tool steel is around 7 to 8 and glass something like 6, talc and things for toothpaste around 4 on the Moh's scale of hardness. Because of the relative hardness of diamonds, and the superb heat conductivity in certain directions, diamond is an excellent material to scratch anything else (read cutting tools) as well as it can also dissipate the heat from cutting quite well. A Japanese firm has been synthesizing diamonds, which are a crystalline form of the element, carbon. Presumably GE has a similar capability or possibly better--a lot of cloak and dagger behavior even from technologists in this area--but GE has made industrial good their market--and have a dominant share of it. The synthetics are distinguishable from the diamonds found in creation. Best regards, m