A possible genius, a smidgen of madness, a twist of science, and an invention that very nearly changed the world-all collide in a giddy, unbelievably true mystery set in turn-of-the-century Paris.
In 1905, inventor Henri Lemoine claimed that he'd uncovered the secret to a coveted alchemy: creating diamonds in a laboratory. It intrigued a host of investors, and it soon made Lemoine an international celebrity. Then he disappeared.
The Diamond Formula is part of Inventions: Untold Stories of the Beautiful Era, a collection of incredible true stories from the belle époque, an age of innovation, daring, bluster, and beauty when anything seemed possible. Each piece can be read, listened to, and marvelled at in a single sitting.
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[It was a tiny basement cell in a Paris neighbourhood known for its slaughterhouses, empty save for an assortment of equipment: an electric furnace, the rheostat used to control its current, a vat of cold water, and a clockwork of wires]***
(Amazon Original Stories, 28 March 2019, 48 pages, ebook, borrowed from @AmazonKindle #PrimeReading)
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I found this quite an interesting read. I'd never heard of the belle époque so it was interesting to read about an era I was unfamiliar with. The tale deals with the invention of cubic zirconia, fake diamonds rather than the real ones. This isn't made clear until almost the end though I had my suspicions that real diamonds weren't being made so easily. This is well research and fascinating though not quite enough to earn 4-stars.