The flame of a candle is made of millions of diamonds.
The luminous secret of a candle: within its flame millions of diamond particles come into existence and disappear.
Although you won't be able to do much with them, if you have a candle you also have billions of nanodiamonds. Art is generally a useless thing and this is the case with the poetic creation of diamond particles and their successive annihilation in an instant.
Dr. Wuzong Zhou of the University of St. Andrews developed a technique to remove the particles in the center of a candle and in doing so discovered that about 1.5 million diamond nanoparticles are produced per second in the combustion of hydrocarbons.
“Unfortunately,” Zhou said, ”the diamond particles are burned in the process and converted to carbon dioxide.” And there is no way to extract these precious particles that would be, as fugitive, a fabulous treasure.
Although it will not be possible to possess these flaming diamonds, the research could help discover ways to create these precious stones while reducing costs.