Hexagonal diamond is a proposed alternative arrangement of the carbon atoms found in ordinary cubic diamond. Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare introduce the history of the idea and the challenge of identifying samples that truly have the distinct structure.
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11:07researchers predicted that there would be a possible hexagonal polymorph of the diamond. They went through the This is, you know, 1960, so this is before computers and stuff. But you can literally sort of do the mathematics of Schrödinger's equation around a carbon atom, and you can make the argument that instead of this cubic structure, there could be a kind of hexagonal structure that is even more stable >> Mhm. >> and even more hard, okay? >> The question is, is that real? >> Right. >> So, 1962, they published this paper in nature and in the 1966-67
11:48they came up with the Canyon Diablo meteorite. There were people who were um analyzing a meteorite that fell in Arizona 50,000 years ago. If you've ever ever been to the Grand Canyon, the south side, there's Meteor Crater right next to the Grand Canyon sort of exit on the 40 Freeway. I was there when I was very young. It was one of the first sort of science field trips that my family took and I got to see the Meteor Crater in Arizona. It is an awesome awesome place. 50 m is about the size of the meteorite that hit Arizona and it has a bunch of shards that fell all over Arizona and that they've been recovered. >> Mhm. >> Okay? Now, this meteor hit Arizona extremely fast
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