Yeah I mentioned already that the tank (or a structure below that supports it) would need a better shape than just a flat surface. Like a V-shape or something:

Well, I know pretty much nothing about resistance of materials.  But I have many difficulties to imagine that a steel rod would be the first thing to break.  After all, isn't steel stronger than graphite?  So in my mind the graphite would turn into diamond first and then shit would happen.

Or maybe we could use tungsten.  I don't know.  I really would like to simulate it, but I'm no mechanical engineer.

What would happen exactly?  The piston will break apart?  Where?  It will be in the chamber anyway.  Cracks might appear but the matter will still be here to transmit pressure.

I guess the part that will not be in the chamber can buckle:


But we don't need a long section out of the chamber.  Considering the difference of density between diamond and graphite, if we want to turn a 10cm high cylinder of graphite we need to reduce its height to only about 7cm, iirc?  So we just need 3 cm motion out of the chamber.  I doubt a 3cm high, 10cm wide steel cylinder  would explode, buckle or anything.  Above this, the section can increase so that pressure can be withstood.

Not so high.  About 1,000°C.  Temperature is not really the problem.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this documentary and yet I'd like to know what would happen in the simpler experiment I've described.

It's just a water tank.

Because it is not the same.  In the first example all the water mass rests on the rod, and there is much more water mass.

We're just not talking about the same mechanical structure.  I'm talking about a rigid tank resting on a narrow rod.  You seem to be willing to talk about pressure on the bottom of a deep pool.

Yes I do.  Please stop now.  I just use water to have a cheap large amount of mass.   Replace it in your mind by sand or stone bricks if you want.

No.  It rests on the rod.


Possibly inside a fixed structure that limits its motion to a vertical movement, though.

Funny thing is that this question is actually pertinent.  There are several very different ways in which a website can deal with bitcoins.

- not dealing at all.  No single mention of bitcoin, and everything priced in national currency ;
- pricing in national currency, but a link provides means to pay in bitcoins, with the price being calculated from real time exchange markets, and bitcoins instantanously turned into national currency, possibly with the help of a third party like bitpay ;
- double pricing, customers can pay in the currency they want.  The website receives and stores bitcoins ;
- bitcoin pricing only, customers must manage to get some bitcoins on their own (like with Silk Roard or some poker sites).

A more serious analysis of the different possibilities would be usefull, I think.

There is no water under the plate.  What I drew on the lower part is the steal rod.  But I guess I should have drawn this:

|                                |
|                                |
|                                |
|__________________|
               |  |              
               |_|

Notice the separation.

The whole large column rests on a single very tight rod, with a 10cm x 10cm section.


Like this:
|                                |
|                                |
|                                |
|________    ________|
               |  |              
               |_|

But of course with a better shape (this one can't obviously support the weight)

Indeed.  Won't be long until they go:  "Hang on.  Does that mean I could receive some of these bitcoins directly from my readers?"

And then for them it will be a "let there be light" moment.

Wordpress will use bitpay and will not held any bitcoins.  That's fine, but it seems to me that bitpay is going to attract attention from authorities.  Were it to be shutdown, I hope their clients will not give up on bitcoins and start accepting bitcoins without turning them into USD immediately.

Diamonds don't have value just because they are scarce.

Imagine you actually could make some as big as you want, and at will.  Would you refrain yourself from doing it?  I bet you wouldn't.  You'd make some because diamonds are cool and pretty.

Humans love to make things, regardless of whether it has value or not.  It just has to be fun, cool, or beautiful.  And because sometimes the value is not in the product, it's in the act of making it.

If someone could figure out a way of making a car-sized diamond, I'm pretty sure someone would actually do it.

Nothing forces them to hold to their bitcoins.  They can convert donations into national currencies as soon as they are received.


Anyway I expressed my opinion about the Wikimedia foundation already.  I believe we should NOT donate anything to them.

Though Wikipedia is a great project (possibly the best ever that came out of the internet), I think the failure and disappearance of the Wikimedia foundation would be a good thing.

 .  Nice analogy.

Probably for the same reasons that the EFF stopped accepting it.

Those might be wrong reasons, though.  Several other organisations do accept bitcoin and they have no problem with that.

Well, last time I checked, Silk Road hadn't been shut down.

So yeah, one can be anonymous on internet.

Thanks so much for mocking my initial thread.  No hard feelings  

My initial idea was rather:

- gather a large amount of metal, concrete, or whatever strong material you have, and make something like a big cylinder about 2 meters high, 15 meters radius ;
- drill a deep hole in the middle, about 10 centimeters wide ;
- fill the hole with graphite ;
- make a long steal rod that fits in the hole.  It will act as a piston.

- build a large spherical water tank.  About 12 meters radius.  This one will do:


- use some kind of rails so that the tank can only move vertically, and put everything above the cylinder.
- fill the tank and let it press on the piston.
- wait a bit.
- empty the tank, take it away and retrieve the diamonds in the hole.

Where would it fail exactly??

This is a question that naggers me sometimes.  It's about diamonds.  Ever since I heard about Neil Stephenson's book "The diamond age" (Haven't read it yet, though), I keep wondering why we are not capable of making diamonds in a industrial way.

Some methods for making diamonds exist already.  Check out wikipedia if you don't know about them.

So why is the biggest known diamond on earth still a natural one??  What's so hard?

Also:  what about using a brute force method?   I mean, a diamond is made from carbon with pressures around 6GPa.  Fine, can't this be done without using explosives or stuff like that?  I mean, with a purely mechanical device?

6 GPa.  That's 6 GigaNewton per square meter.  That's about 600e6 kg weighting on the same surface.  That's 600 Kt  (Kilo metric ton).   One ton is a cubic meter of water.    So 6 GPa is the pressure at the bottom of a 600 kilometers deep ocean.  That's deep.

But I don't need a 1 meter-sized diamond.  I'd be happy with a 10cm one or so.  That's one hundred times smaller a surface than a square meter.  So I just need a 6 Km deep ocean, providing that I can manage to have a one square meter water column weight on a square decimeter one.

Hell I can reduce the height of the thing by an hundred factor if I use a wilder column.  So, a ten-meter per ten-meter section column need to be 6 Km / 100 = 60m height.

So here is my question:  isn't it possible to build a 10m x 10m x 60m pool (or a 11.27m radius spherical water tank) and have it weight on a 10cm x 10cm area?

It's funny to see how difficult it is for some to accept Bitcoin for donations, despite the fact that it is technically ridiculously easy.

The main obstacle seem psychological.  It's probably not easy for some people who have been bashing it few years ago.