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Making an exact replica of a work of art would be tantamount to destroying the original, or so an artist friend told me when I asked him that very question. On
by apricot 11y ago
Making an exact replica of a work of art would be tantamount to destroying the original, or so an artist friend told me when I asked him that very question.
On a related note, you can buy lab-created rubies for a few dollars each that are pretty much indistinguishable from rubies found in the ground that are sold for millions of dollars. They have the exact same chemical formula, same optical properties, same everything (except for relative proportions of various isotopes and the fact that lab-created rubies tend to have fewer blemishes).
What's the reason for the difference? As far as I can tell, it's this: people don't buy rubies, they buy the right to advertise the fact that they spend millions of dollars on jewelry. Same goes for paintings.
- derefr 11y agoI do wonder, re: the rubies (and the same goes for diamonds)—would it be in the best interest of the gem seller (e.g. De Beers) to still put on a show of mining the gems, but in reality synthesize most of their stock?
- letstryagain 11y agoYou can tell which rocks are natural because of the flaws contained in them. The flaws in natural rocks can not be created using a synthetic process. Synthetic stones are flawless. Yes you can introduce flaws in synthetic stones but they don't look like natural flaws.
- Joeri 11y agoHow would you know? For all we know they figured that out years ago and are putting up a show of how impossible it is to reproduce natural flaws while laughing all the way to the bank. Anyway, even if you can't synthesize a perfect replica now, it will be possible someday. This is a wider problem for all scarcity driven industries. As we improve materials science natural scarcity will go away, and those industries will either run towards intellectual property rights or be forced to change their business model.
- snowwrestler 11y agoSynthetic diamond research is not owned or controlled by the cartels that control the from-the-ground gem market. The processes and limits of making diamonds are the subject of scientific papers, industrial processes, academic conferences, etc.
- apricot 11y agoThe gemstone industry's approach to this is to call mined gemstones "real gemstones" or "natural gemstones" and ones made in a lab "synthetic gemstones". This leads the general public to believe that lab-created stones are somehow artificial or fake, like leather-imitation vinyl.
- runamok 11y agoWow. I had no idea... http://www.geolite.com/ruby.htm http://www.geolite.com/ruby.htm