Oh, subby, this article was boron me. *yawn*

Boring article that concludes that diamonds are still hardest. No news here.

Who gives a schist?

I couldn't read much of the article because I am afraid of Boron.

WhiteAndNerdy: Who gives a schist?

Gneiss.

Diamond has cleavage planes that are exploited by diamond cutters.

/hot like the word cleavage planes

Nobody doesn't like boron!



/hot like molten boron

I already love this thread.

and now I really love the article

"Most of us know a hard object when we bump into one - but not what makes it hard"

/giggle

Baryogenesis: and now I really love the article

"Most of us know a hard object when we bump into one - but not what makes it hard"

/giggle


Mine goes to 11...

liverpoolumd: Mine goes to 11...

There is so much goodness in that post. I commend you good sir.

Everyone knows that bismuth is the hardest metal known to man.

Have they tried Chinese algebra?

smeag0l: Diamond has cleavage planes that are exploited by diamond cutters.

/hot like the word cleavage planes

You can slice 'em in pretty much any orientation with a water-jet cutter, too. And grind 'em with diamond powder pretty easily.

//Unlikely to ever make a metal that can cut 'em because the continuous nature of mettalic bonding leads to structural configurations which are easily deformed... thus, ductility, the primary materials advantage of metal (it's not hardness, it's toughness and elasticity in a lot of cases).

No I didn't

captainktainer: Everyone knows that bismuth is the hardest metal known to man.

That's why Bismuth is booming.

Hardness goes up, toughness goes down.

/for the most part

So this is the stuff they made the ship out of in The Core?

/yes, I saw it
//no, it cannot be unseen. keep children away from it

Wow, what a bad article. I'm interested in this stuff, and I couldn't bring myself to read all of TFA.

DeBeers: "Get a brain, Boron."

HawkEyes: //no, it cannot be unseen.

Surely you mean Siemens go to 11.

Freddy Mohs
Freddy Mohs
He gave us his Hardness Scale
(Actually, it's Friedrich Mohs now)
Freddy Mohs
Freddy Mohs
Diamond/Boron
Hardness Scale

Makh: mamoru: SpaceLord: WhiteAndNerdy: Who gives a schist?

Gneiss.

Some people take this kind of humor for granite.

I don't have an apatite for these jokes.

Hoodoo?

Dull Cow Eyes: "Get a brain, Boron."

Came in to post this

Oops, read that as mhos, never mind.

Denial_of_Death: Freddy Mohs

It's Fred now.

jekxrb: Oh, subby, this article was boron me. *yawn*

This one time I totally got detention for telling that joke.

/ still bitter

these guys don't know what they're talcing about
they think that they can gypsum people into buying this?
i'm being really recalcitetrant about it.
...
etc.

Our government fooled everyone with 9/11 and Obama's origins, so surely they can fake another moon landing within 11 years.

resnet_pimp: these guys don't know what they're talcing about
they think that they can gypsum people into buying this?
i'm being really recalcitetrant about it.
...
etc.

You're so jaded. Schorl-y you found a pearl of wisdom on this news aggragate-or site.

/p-gneiss
//yes it was used already

Jim_Callahan:

//Unlikely to ever make a metal that can cut 'em because the continuous nature of mettalic bonding leads to structural configurations which are easily deformed... thus, ductility, the primary materials advantage of metal (it's not hardness, it's toughness and elasticity in a lot of cases).

And here I though I was a nerd. I guess you win.

All hail Boron!

/obskur?

Theophrastus not amused

impaler: FTFA: You don't often break a diamond. So when in 2003 Dave Mao cracked a tooth of his diamond anvil, he knew something extraordinary must have happened.

So, what the hell have all these diamond cutters been doing all these years?

/You don't often SCRATCH a diamond

This. Diamonds aren't that hard to crack along a cleavage plane- it's how they're shaped. Scratching a diamond is still pretty much impossible.

I had taken her for granite, but it wasn't my basalt.
Shale be happier with someone else. It's gneiss that she didn't press charges; told the copper to go away; I didn't get charged with a salt. I was a real boron. Anyway, you get the schist of it. I was an igneous bastard. She was going through some sort of personal metamorphic phase. I was living a sedimentary lifestyle. I gave her a rock to put on her finger, but I just didn't have the sand to go through with the wedding. I drank too much and soiled myself. I just keep thinking there is some silver of a chance she'll come brick.

The property hardness is resistance to abrasion (i.e. scratching). This doesn't mean that the substance is unbreakable. There is a big difference. There are anecdotal stories of people finding diamonds and then smashing them with a hammer because they mistakenly assumed that they could not be broken. Don't try this at home, kids!