At least five reasons can explain it: Two are usually included in a sort of technical explanation: 1. Refraction of the light, 2. Reflection of the light. A third phenomenon is at work, 3. Diffraction or Dispersion of the light as it enters the diamond and as it “bounces around” inside the diamond until 4. the light escapes which is what is seen as “shine” or “sparkle” by the person looking at the diamond.
The light doesn’t increase when it’s bouncing around inside the diamond. It id vhsnged, not amplified but not increased because of a lot of natural laws that prove it doesn’t increase.
Diamonds also shine because of the skill of the diamond cutter who cuts the diamond into a complex shape. The higher the skill, the better the cut of the stone and the more light is refracted, diffracted, and reflected. A well cut diamond has a brilliance no other stone can match.
Finally, light consists of many colors. Sunlight has the most colors. Light from various types of electric powered lights doesn’t have as many colors as sunlight so a diamond always looks better in sunlight unless it has flaws that are hidden under different colored light.
Sunlight has no visible color which may seem odd since it has all of the colors. It has to do with the way a beam of sunlight combines all of the colors.
If sunlight is beamed through a certain type of glass prism it will emerge as a rainbow with all of the colors separated. That’s diffraction or the dispersion of a beam into many colors.
Different colors of light are light that has been separated by the frequency of the wavelengths. It is seen as a rainbow of color which is caused by diffraction that has separated the light by the frequency of the various wavelengths contained in the light beam or the light ray.
Light has a special quality that causes confusion. Sometimes it operates like a single ray, a sort of beam that can be calculated as though it was a sort of bullet but it’s a complex ray that consists of all of the colors. The diffraction in the diamond breaks the ray into the separate colors and that’s why there are so many spectacular colors in a “brilliant” diamond.
The round cut of a diamond can show the most sparkle. All of the other cuts while wonderful in their own attributed do not have the power to handle the light like the round, “brilliant” cut. An inferior round diamond however will not look as good as a higher quality Marquis or Pear shape so there’s a lot more to buying and selling diamonds than the typical Carets, Cut, Color and Clarity. Most jewelers never get in the weeds about diamonds because the physics are daunting and to explain them to someone not familiar with college physics will take a lot of time. Time works against sales people so they reduce things to the big four characteristics of diamonds and stay away from the more intricate attributes.
See more HERE.
Just be aware that the science of diamonds can overwhelm. That’s why a trustworthy jewlar is an important person when buying a diamond that will be around for decades. We were very capably helped by the jewelers of jewelers row
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