> Graham Pearson, professor with the University of Alberta's department of earth and atmospheric sciences, says that the natural formation of diamonds deep underground results in a "complexity" you can't get with the lab-grown variety.
Okay; but why should I aesthetically prefer this?
The whole thing is such an obvious marketing exercise with very little to back it up (as evidenced by the extremely low resale value of diamonds)
It's much much more complex that a solid sheet of tempered glass, and it catches the light and reflects it in sparkling ways.
Maybe these so called "complex" diamonds create more interesting light interfaces?
If they did, it would be possible to detect the difference with perfect accuracy. Instead, the detectors made by those interested in pushing the concept of "real, natural" diamonds have a false positive rate of 5% looking for the inclusion of things labs could easily add if they cared to
Glass doesn't sparkle.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Miluxas-Women-s-Glitter-Tennis-Sn...
Diamonds (and other gems) really are beautifula to look at in ways that glass just isn't. And manmade ones, sparklier still out of the forge of our own cleverness, are much nicer in my opinion.
(Moissanite is even better, so it should be preferred over diamonds unless I’m overlooking some other difference in their attributes?)
But plain glass gems look comparatively bland when used as jewelry.
Diamond (10) is 4x as hard as corundum (9) which is 2x as hard as topaz (8).
The modern-day aesthetic of diamonds is just that they are expensive. They're not distinguished by utility, quality, or appearance from cheaper products. The ultimate status symbol, but also obviously a bit of an issue...
(I don’t know if color gradients are even desirable in the market.)