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Forever Yours™

 Ashes to ashes?
 
(+1, -1) 		  [vote for,
against]

Burial or cremation of loved ones are so often sad times.

Forever Yours™ provides a beautiful reminder of the past, a way to remember with fondness and adoration the love shared between yourself and the dearly departed.

Roughly 23% of the human body, by weight, is carbon. Forever Yours™ will take a small portion of that carbon, perhaps the heart (or similarly sized organ), and reduce it to its essential carbon, then apply monstrous pressure and heat to it, melding it into a beautiful, flawless diamond. It can then be cut to whatever shape you desire, to best show off the attributes of the departed, as you recall them. Some may wish to leave it uncut, especially for the rugged, devil-may-care types.

The bereaved may then wear this diamond as a keepsake, if they wish.

Sure, it'll be expensive, but what price love?

—UnaBubba, Apr 03 2003

Your diamond may be a little smaller than you expect http://www.madsci.o...927309210.An.r.html
18.5% carbon [angel, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Baked. http://www.lifegem.com/
What price love? Only $2,299 -$9,999, depending on your choice of model! [idyll, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Adorn your home with cremains! http://www.memorialart.com/
Abstract art made with cremated remains of dearly departed. [idyll, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

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       How do you extract the carbon?
—angel, Apr 03 2003
   

       Carbon can be taken out by combustion in pure oxygen, creating carbon dioxide. This can be reduced using a catalyst to pure carbon. Trouble is the diamonds are very small and not very good. They can be made better by dissolving the carbon in a metal. So I hear. Sounds good, but a little creepy
—miasere, Apr 03 2003
   

       The other nice thing to do is to glaze a pot with a glaze made from the ashes of your loved one. Ash contains a fair amount of carbon, plus some silicates and a whole load of assorted minerals and metallic compounds. If you heat this in oxygen to about 1250ºC the carbon burns off as C02 and the silicates form a sort of yellow-coloured glass - almost a pretty good ash glaze. My wife makes pottery glazes of this type starting with wood ash, but I've heard of someone doing it with the ashes of their dog and then glazing a "memorial tea mug" with it.
—hippo, Apr 03 2003
   

       What about using the dearly deceased to supplement our diets? Put your loved one's minerals INSIDE you with Memento Mori Vitamins!
—idyll, Apr 03 2003
   

       Combustion in an oxygen-poor environment will leave you with charcoal, which is very high in carbon.   

       Damn! Someone else thought of it? Thanks, [idyll]
—UnaBubba, Apr 03 2003
   

       EEEWWWwwww! Dead people.

+
—ato_de, Apr 03 2003
   

       "No, it really _is_ her best friend."
—waugsqueke, Apr 03 2003
   

       Hah!

I really don't like this idea much, I'm afraid and, goodness, those lifegems folks really take you to the cleaners. Man-made gemstone diamonds are a fraction of the prices they charge.
—bristolz, Apr 03 2003
   

       A 12-stone person would, according to angel's 18.5%, yield (with perfect conversion) 13.986kg of carbon. This would mean a 69930ct diamond (again, assuming perfect conversion).   

       Even if you could attain only, say, 10% efficiency by mass on both reclamation and crystallisation, that's still a pretty tasty rock (crappy quality notwithstanding).   

       We must, however, consider the gruesome possibility that our late loved one's soul may be trapped for eternity in the gem - which could, as a side effect, confer strange powers upon the wearer...
—friendlyfire, Apr 03 2003
   

       [bris] Are "man-made diamonds" the same thing as cubic zirconias?
—hippo, Apr 03 2003
   

       How do you spell "Baked"? Ah, I see idyll got there first.
—DrCurry, Apr 03 2003
   

       [hippo] as [reensure]'s link explains, they are not at all the same as cubic zirconia and are, in fact, diamond. At $3500/carat, not cheap, either.
—bristolz, Apr 03 2003
   

       Hmmm. A diamond is forever, but its owner isn't. Having treasured your loved one's remains till you perish, they will subsequently end up being sold on ebay as just another fake gem. Doesn't quite sound right, does it?
—sadie, Apr 04 2003
   

       I had heard of this, and find it macabre beyond words. "I just dropped Granny down the plughole..."   

       That said, I find the word "Cremains" darkly humorous.   

       What next? A dear spouse remembered forever as a "wife-vory" paperkife?   

       "You have your mothers eyes". "Yes, I keep them in my reticule"
—whimsickle, Apr 04 2003
   

       "Esther always had a sharp tongue," said the burglar to his partner in crime as he dragged the diamond across the bank window pane.
—bristolz, Apr 04 2003
   

       sadie: ah, but when you go, your remains could be added to the gem in question, uniting your carbon atoms for all eternity (well, at least until the Milky Way collides with Andromeda). Also, whatever DeBeers wants you to think, man-made diamonds are *not* fake gems - they're the real thing.
—DrCurry, Apr 04 2003
   


 

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