Can swords chop diamonds? My 8 year old daughter wants to know.?

Question

Any answers are great, but scientific ones, would be very interesting. I said I didn't think they could, but as I've never tried it, who knows?

Answer 1

"chop" might be a misleading term. Diamonds are "cleaved" with sharp blades similar to a chisel. Given enough energy, the diamond will split along its crystal planes. This is how diamond facets are cut prior to polishing.

Answer 2

I've worked as a jeweler, and the short answer is yes, it could be done, at least in theory.

This is because diamonds, while the hardest substance known, are also very brittle. When a diamond is said to have been "cut", it was actually broken, in a very precise manner. (Diamonds, because of their crystal structure, have multiple cleavage planes.) And I have frequently seen diamonds set in jewelry such as rings that have had chips knocked off by getting banged against other things.

This is why "cutting" diamonds is a completely different technique than the cutting of semiprecious stones, which is done by using saw blades coated with diamond dust, and grinders utilizing a variety of abrasives. Those truly are cut, in the sense of being sliced through by a harder material.

While it's pretty unlikely that hitting it with a sword would break it cleanly, it could most certainly shatter it, which I suppose qualifies as "chopping" it.

Answer 3

Some of the answers above are really good (the ones that explain that diamonds are very hard but can be cut along crsytal lattice lines). Maybe your daughter might learn a thing or two about how the microscopic structure of materials dictates the properties that we observe.

If I might add that you would probably be banging on the diamond with a sword for a very long time until you hit it just right. I have heard of rare cases where diamonds in rings were ruined by just accidentally tapping it against something.

Answer 4

I have to agree with the first answerer in that if the diamond was correctly prepared at first it very well could be "cleaved" (i.e. broken apart) with a sword:

"Large diamonds are often preshaped by cleaving into pieces suitable for sawing. When the stone is very large and valuable, the cleaving is a most critical process, because a mistake by the planner or the cleaver can shatter the stone. The cleaver cuts a groove along the line showing where the stone is to be cleaved, using another diamond as a cutting tool. He mounts the diamond in a holder called a dop and inserts a steel wedge into the groove. He strikes the wedge sharply with a mallet and the diamond splits along its cleavage" (see http://www.original-diamonds.com/jewelry_knowledge_cutting.php ).

In fact, "[i]f the precise point was located on the diamond's structure, the adhesion would be so weak that the diamond could be separated with a fingernail" (also see http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/chap11.htm ).

Thus, even the hardest of materials also has an "achilles tendon."
:-)

Answer 5

Wow...ok...well let's phrase this answer for an 8 year old little girl. A diamond is really hard...BUT it has little bitty cracks in it that only people who know what to look for can see them. And only then with some help from some special tools. If the sword chopped hard enough and hit the right spot on the diamond then it would crack. That's what they call "cleaving".

Answer 6

Diamonds cannot be chopped, since they are crystals like sugar or salt, so they can only be cleaved.
Well diamonds are the hardest substance on earth. One of the reasons for its hardness is because of it's large molecule. The molecular structure is such that it can forms very very large molecules.
Diamond can be cut only by a substance as hard or harder than diamond. Thus it is impossible to cut a diamond with a sword.

Answer 7

if you had a sword made of somthing harder than diamond then yes, but as diamond is a 10 (the maximum mumber) on the mohs hardness scale its unlikely that such a thing exists. A diamond will scratch just about anything so it would scratch a metal sword ansd the sword would probably just bounce off.

Answer 8

The only things that can cut / chop dimonds are other dimonds and lasers. If your sword is made up of one of these, you can chop it. Dimonds a made at extreme pressure and temperature and hence the bonds between the molecules are very strong. Wheneer you cut something, the cutter should be harder (have stronger molecular bonds) than the stuff being cut.

To add to rabindra's ans, dimonds DO NOT have a large molecular structure. Its the purest form of carbon atoms. The molecules are bound together strongly they DO NOT form large molecules.

Answer 9

The only thing that can chop a diamond is another diamond

so that would make the answer no.

Answer 10

If the sword had a diamond edge blade, maybe. But only diamonds can cut diamonds.