the.com/gemstone
A rock that got really good at bending light and charged accordingly.
means A mineral or stone prized and cut for jewelry because of its color, rarity, or brilliance.
from From Old English 'gim' (a precious stone, itself borrowed from Latin 'gemma,' meaning bud or jewel — Romans saw the swelling bud of a plant and the swelling sparkle of a jewel as kin) plus 'stone,' added later to make the meaning plain. So the word literally doubles up: gem-stone, jewel-rock, in case one word wasn't convincing enough.
- hardness scale
- Diamonds rank 10, talc ranks 1, Mohs invented it in 1812
- color chemistry
- Trace iron or chromium, not the mineral itself, makes color
- biggest producer
- Most sapphires and rubies now come from Madagascar, not Asia
- fake origins
- Cubic zirconia was accidentally discovered by Soviet scientists in 1937