WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Feb 27, 2004 17:38:50 GMT -5
Greetings All, Slightly off-topic, but it seems that there is one huge hunk of diamond out in space a mere 50 light-years from Earth. As far as I can tell it would be too big to fit into a rock tumbler. Maybe a huge faceting machine could be made for it instead ;D news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3492919.stmBy Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A diamond that is almost forever Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered. The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus........ Hummm....there's 5 carats in one gram, so this thing is 2 billion trillion trillion grams, or 2 million trillion trillion kilograms, or 2 thousand trillion trillion metric tons. Gee, that's only a thousand trillion trillion tons more than the rocks I got from South Africa WilliamC
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Post by sandsman1 on Feb 27, 2004 18:42:39 GMT -5
i enjoyed that thanks william ---john
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WarrenA
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2003
Posts: 1,530
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Post by WarrenA on Feb 28, 2004 0:26:19 GMT -5
that would be one BIG rock, if it were to hit the earth, i doubt that there would be anything left except the dinosaurs would make a comeback
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Post by creativeminded on Mar 1, 2004 18:10:17 GMT -5
That is cool. Tami
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Mazanec
spending too much on rocks
Member since March 2004
Posts: 355
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Post by Mazanec on Apr 1, 2004 11:59:04 GMT -5
WarrenA: I have a BS in Astronomy, so I know this. If the Earth hit a white dwarf (it would not really be the other way aound) it would be like a bullet hitting a dandelion seed. The Earth would disappear, and all you would have is a slightly dirty white dwarf and some incandescent wisps of plasma.
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bschultz
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2004
Posts: 234
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Post by bschultz on Apr 1, 2004 13:02:35 GMT -5
This topic brings up the question...what is the biggest capasity tumbler barrel you can buy? I've often wondered if you could take an old cement mixer truck and convert it to tumble really BIG rocks? Wouldn't that be cool, polished tumble stones the size of my desk. A must have for the Atriums of the rich and famous.
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Apr 1, 2004 14:50:47 GMT -5
Greetings All, The biggest commercially avaliable rock tumbler I know of is a 65 lb model www.4facets.com/tumbler_commercial.htmlBut I really like the idea of using cement trucks, I think you're onto something. Of course you would need a seperate truck for the grit and polish stages... WilliamC
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