2008

Diamond’s Secret May Be Cracked By Israeli Scientists

January 2008

Chemists at Bar-Ilan University and mechanical engineers at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, may have cracked the secret of why diamonds are the hardest material in nature, according to the Jerusalem Post.

In an article soon to be published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry by four noted Israeli scientists, it was discovered that the interactions among atoms that are not chemically bonded directly to each other are responsible for the diamond's hardness. The scientists predicted that the discovery will lead to the development of additional super-hard materials, some of which may be even harder than the diamond.