CAN diamonds exist in liquid form? Only if you put carbon under massive pressure and heat it to the temperature at the surface of the sun. Diamonds may have formed this way early on in Earth’s history when the planet was a hotter and more violent place.
Simulations developed by Evert Jan Meijer of the University of Amsterdam and colleagues from the University of Nijmegen suggest that squeezing hot fluid carbon forces groups of atoms to link up with their neighbours to save space. These small groups form the tetrahedral shapes found in solid diamonds but they are constantly breaking…
