Subscribe Feed (RSS)How many average-sized carrots would you need in order to make a synthetic one-carat diamond?
March 4th, 2008 by admin | Filed under Other - Science.
uncleclover asked:
I love wordplay, but actually am kinda’ curious on this one. If you don’t already know, any organic matter can be processed into synthetic diamonds - some folks even have their deceased loved ones preserved in that manner. So if x = number of average-sized carrots processed into a synthetic diamond, solve for “x” in this equation:
I love wordplay, but actually am kinda’ curious on this one. If you don’t already know, any organic matter can be processed into synthetic diamonds - some folks even have their deceased loved ones preserved in that manner. So if x = number of average-sized carrots processed into a synthetic diamond, solve for “x” in this equation:
x carrots = 1 carat
Curious. 
I have no idea, but I LOVE this question! Bravo!
13.783Carrots per carat
who would k
now that
considering that the companies that will make diamonds out of your dear departed need one human body to make one diamond, a lot of carrots, approx 100 lbs at least.
Well… I would have to eat a whole bunch of carrots before I could see the answer clearly!
Well since carrots are organic material, you need to find out how much carbon is in each carrot. Then you need to find out the efficiency of the process that turns organic matter into synthetic diamonds. .
A carat is 200 mg. I weighed some rather small carrots and found that they were about 50 g each. Assuming that a carrot is about 80% water that would give a dry weight of 1 g. The majority of the dry weight will be carbohydrates which will contain about 40% carbon, giving a total carbon content of 400 mg or 2 carats.
I’d rather have the real thing, haha! but that is good! (your question, as the first person said)