![]() ![]() For comparison, consider that cast iron melts at about 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures rise as high as about 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the carbon settles down for a long bake inside Algordanza’s high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) machines. In the next step, the carbon ashes are converted into graphite, a stable allotrope of carbon in which the atoms are packed into tight, flat sheets. ![]() (The remaining ashes are shipped back.) From there, Algordanza uses the same tools Mother Nature uses to make diamonds: heat and pressure. Scientists process the ashes to extract the pure carbon elements and remove other impurities. It works like this: After the cremation, the bereaved family ships one pound of ashes to Algordanza’s laboratory in Switzerland. The geologic process that otherwise takes hundreds of millions of years can now be managed in weeks. Using high-tech heavy-industry machines, engineers can transform the carbon from human ashes into diamond gems that are physically and chemically identical to natural diamonds. The Swiss company Algordanza is one of them. Several companies worldwide now offer services to families that have the notion, and the resources, to memorialize their loved ones in arguably the most permanent way possible. Using high-tech machines, engineers can transform the carbon from human ashes into diamond gems that are physically and chemically identical to natural diamonds. It’s gratuitous and extreme and wonderful: We can turn our mortal remains into diamonds. Thanks to startling advances in industrial engineering, we can now synthetically re-create colossal geological forces to shape our ultimate destiny on this planet. Because I write about science and technology for a living, I’ve lingered at these intersections, observing the innovations: digital memorials on social media, eco-friendly green burial options, even interactive tombstones.Īmong the tech-savvy options for modern decedents, one stands out because it’s so genuinely weird. In these early years of the 21st century, they’re getting really interesting. The intersections of death and technology have long been busy crossroads. In every era, it’s the available technology that determines our range of memorial options. But the notion is one thing, and the execution is another. Notions about honoring the dead are shaped by many factors-culture, tradition, geography, religion. In 19th-century Europe and America, “death photography” produced portraits of the departed in lifelike poses in the Tibetan Buddhist rite known as sky burial or bya gtor (alms for the birds), earthly remains are set out to feed vultures. What some mourners consider meaningful, others would call macabre. Throughout history, people have devised elaborate ways to memorialize the dead: the pyramids of Egypt, Europe’s Gothic mausoleums, the Taj Mahal in India. This story appears in the May 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |