Diamonds: ten scintillating facts

   1.   Diamonds were first mined in India 3000 to 6000 years ago.

   2.    The name “diamond” comes from a Greek word meaning “unbreakable.”  Another word from the same root is “adamant,” meaning either incredibly hard or utterly unyielding in attitude or opinion.

   3.    Diamonds are a cubic crystal of pure carbon – the same material as coal or the “lead” (really graphite) in pencils.

   4.   Because diamond is made of carbon, combusting it with heat and oxygen leads to the production of carbon dioxide gas, as first demonstrated by chemist Antoine Lavoisier in 1772. Lavoisier used lenses to concentrate heat of the sun on a diamond surface until it began to vaporize.
 
   5.    Just one stray atom in a million can give a diamond a distinctive color.  If the stray atoms are boron, the diamond will be bluish; if nitrogen, it will be a faint yellow.

   6.     In 2011, the recently discovered Cora Sun-Drop, a 110-carat yellow pear-shaped diamond, sold at auction for $10.9 million.

   7. Not only is diamond the hardest naturally occurring substance, it’s also the best thermal conductor.  That is, it will transfer heat from one place to another 

      much better than any metal.

   8.   Every year, 33,000 kilograms of diamonds are mined, while another 110,000 kilograms of diamond are manufactured synthetically. Only 20 percent of mined diamonds are large and pure enough to be gem grade.

   9.  Cutting a diamond to make a gem generally removes about half the weight of the diamond.

  10.  Most earthly diamond was created 1 to 3 billion years ago in the pressure and heat of the mantle around 100 miles under the earth’s crust.  Diamond comes to the surface in volcanic events as magma rises through the crust.

To learn more about diamonds, check out Mae and Clinton’s adventures in my scientific mystery for kids, The Desperate Case of the Diamond Chip. 

Winding down in Taipei

Since the end of the Taiwan book fair Monday, I've been able to be more of a tourist. One highlight was riding the Maokong gondola at the zoo, up over three mountains in the rain and fog. Through the clear floor of our "crystal" gondola, we could look down on the tropical foliage and tea plantations. Later we plunged down the steep slope in darkness toward the city lights.

Another day the Tumblehome team took the fast train to the industrial city of Hsinchu, where we visited the national space agency and Ritek, a manufacturer of industrial diamonds for use in the semiconductor industry and elsewhere,as mentioned in my upcoming book, The Desperate Case of the Diamond Chip. Dr. James Sung, the brilliant Ritek founder, gave us a seminar on diamonds and graphene, their properties and their links to the origins of life. All fascinating stuff that I may write about more once I finish reading his book.

As for the space agency, with a small budget it has created a leading-edge system of six weather satellites circling the globe, measuring heat and density in the atmosphere to assist in the prediction of typhoons and other phenomena. In partnership with the US, Taiwan is now building twelve new, even more sophisticated satellites. In our informal visit we saw where the components are tested for stability in a vacuum and while undergoing rapid and violent temperature changes.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at Intel Taiwan, where I showed slides and told stories about my father, some of the other Intel founders, and my memories of Intel's earliest days. Actually I think the most popular part of the lecture was when I told them I had eaten the local specialty, stinky tofu. I also gave out a number of copies of Lost in Lexicon's first edition and Advance Reader Copies of Tumblehome Learning books left over from the book fair. The audience was warm and enthusiastic, with questions ranging from what we talked about over dinner in my childhood home to how to raise children to be adventurous yet safe. At the end, Rachel Liu from corporate relations presented me with a cute blue Intel robot-like figure in a bunny suit.

After Intel, Barnas took me to the Long Shan (Dragon Mountain) temple, quite an eclectic temple in the heart of the city. It has a fantastic curved roof, carved ceilings, a waterfall, and lantern figures around the edges of the courtyards. I didn't buy incense or pray to any of the deities, which may be why I got the following fortune when I drew a stick from a pot: "You have failed. Change your boss or change your ways." Since I'm my own boss, I think the message is pretty clear about where the problem lies.

From there we went on to a couple of night markets, ending up at a very authentic, drippy (it's still raining) local one in Houshanpi. There I ate more tso doufu (stinky tofu) and a kind of oyster omelet. However, I avoided chicken rump, large intestines, bin lanh (betel nut), turtle, frog, or snake. Maybe next time.

Writing and publishing in the new year

In 2010, I self-published Lost in Lexicon. In 2011, Scarletta Press published a second edition of Lost in Lexicon and Harvard Education Press published a book I pulled together and co-edited, New Frontiers in Formative Assessment. So that means I should publish 3 books in 2012, right?

Yes. Coming by autumn 2012 will be my science-based mystery for upper elementary kids, The Desperate Case of the Diamond Chip. Around the same time, I'll publish a kids' biography of my father called Do Something Wonderful. Meantime, in September, Scarletta Press will come out with The Ice Castle, which is a Lexicon sequel.

The Ice Castle is written, edited, copy-edited, etcetera. All that remains are illustrations and proofing, Advance Reader Copies, reviews, endorsements, and all that other time-consuming stuff. The Diamond Chip is written and edited, with illustrations underway. Go Off and Do Something Wonderful is about two-thirds written, though we'll be presenting a selection of chapters in English and Mandarin at the Taiwan International Book Fair. Science experiments to do at home will accompany the latter two books. Peter Wong, one of the Tumblehome Learning founding partners, has already designed the first set of experiments and will be working on the second soon.

What else? Well, I have a YA coming-of-age novel called The Beechwood Flute that needs a final draft before it can find a good home. I could spend a couple of months on that somewhere. And this year I also have to write the third Lexicon book. I can tell you the title - The Floating Islands - but not much more.

On the Lexicon front, 2012 will also see the completion of the Lost in Lexicon musical, which is going to be really exciting. I hope I'll be able to play one or two songs from the musical-under-construction at the the US Science and Engineering Festival Book Fair in DC at the end of April.

So you can see that this is going to be a very busy year of writing, publishing, and promotion for me. Not only that, but Tumblehome Learning is really taking off. Besides my own two books, we'll be publishing four to five others in 2012. We're working to establish a Taiwan office, and we're reaching out to potential partners in Korea, France, and Germany. This week we'll have our first face-to-face board meeting since our founding last July.

And for all you out there who love science and writing for young people, Tumblehome Learning will begin accepting manuscripts in mid-January. Take a look at our guidelines and give us a thought.