Does coal not sparkle because of its colour or because light does not refract / reflect from the cut facets? Thanks!
In: Physics
Diamonds are unique in terms of forms of carbon in that they are transparent and very optically dense. This means that light slows down a *lot* when it passes through diamonds. The result is that it bounces around the inside of them a lot, and gets sent off in all directions. Other carbon arrangements will happily absorb this light, and would be much less optically dense even if they didn’t, so they could not sparkle.
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