Diamonds

[unixronin]

Diamonds aren’t forever.  Diamonds are for about 10¹⁶⁰ years ... just like any other baryonic matter.

Comments

[rbos.livejournal.com]

They'll decay into graphite in 1 atmosphere significantly faster than that. :)

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Where do you get that number from?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It's the only number I've ever seen quoted for proton decay. You know of a different one...?

(I'm not trying to be rigorous here, btw ... it was just a whimsical thought that occurred to me today.)

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Well, the only number I know of is the lower bound from deep-underground water Cherenkov detectors, 10^33 years.

I would be more concerned about beta decay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay). :)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, true, but [hypothetical] proton decay is over a hundred orders of magnitude closer to "forever in all practical terms anyway". ;)

[smandal.livejournal.com]

There is a certain class of GUT models which predict proton lifetimes shorter than 10^33 years, so they are problematic.

Whether or not that is a practical concern I guess depends on your aims. :)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. But I believe you said we have a 10^33 lower bound from the deep Cerenkov detectors, right? Which would tend to argue against those particular GUTs...

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Right, so these models are now problematic.

By "problematic" I mean disfavored in their stock form, and less appealing when they are made more complicated to avoid this problem.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

well, and they're quite brittle. all those nice clean cleavage planes mean that a nice good smack on a refrigerator and... you have tons of incredibly hard unscratchable microdiamonds... (they're high pressure materils. without the high pressure of the deep crust around they don't hold together too well... but it does make them very dense and hard.)
i'd take a nice topaz over them shiny glassy things any day.