World of diamonds bigger than the Ritz discovered A curious world orbiting a star 1200 light years from our own solar system could be home to diamonds of enormous, unparalleled size, say boffins. The planet WASP-12b was discovered last year by a group of UK astronomers, the Wide Angle Search for Planets. Since then it has been probed intensively by NASA's Spitzer telescope in …
The company's product is being withheld from the street so to create artificial demand.
This means that if there were to be a new find of diamonds, you could flood the street and the price of diamonds would drop, men would buy more, and wive/girlfriends would be happy and there would be world peace ...
(Ok that last bit is a stretch in logic, but somehow one can always tie in man's sexual needs in to aggression and quest for world domination.... [Keep the image of the South Park's Team America... 'I'm so wronely ... in your mind. :-P] )
Astronomers have two ways of doing mathematics:
1) Declare that anything within the same order of magnitude equals anything else within the same order of magnitude.
2) Ignore half the tiny random variances in position and spectrum readings, add up the ones that go in the direction that gets them the most funding, and declare "ZOMG GAINT DIEMOND PLANIT!!!!ELEVEN!!"
Honestly, astronomers make cold fusion physicists look like the very soul of responsible practicality.
As an astrophysicist I have to point out that you're only telling half the story there.
We also have a constant that isn't and quite happily will accept as accurate any answer which seems feasible, or at least interesting.
Seriously, best science ever for people like me who don't quibble over little niggling details like a parsec here or a billion years there.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Spooky!
There is a Viz cartoon - "My Dad's an Alien" or some such, of a family where the father, who looks like a normal British bloke, embarasses his family by collecting dog shit, claiming he's going to take to his native planet.
Later in the cartoon he does indeed fire himself off to the planet which is littered with diamonds, and the dog shit is revered there as diamonds are here.
So, my point is, erm, Viz predicted this. Although the canine fecal angle is rather missing I fear.
Using the same lawyers of the woman who claims ownership of the sun* I stake my claim to this planet.
I am now in negotiations with SpaceX to fulfill my 3 years residency requirement to validate my claim
*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8174180/Spanish-woman-claims-ownership-of-the-sun.html
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
