I ♥ Chemistry!!!

Ever wonder why it takes so much heat and pressure to turn coal into a diamond (if you're a nerd you have!) Well for starters a diamond is a very dense rock that is made up of straight carbon-carbon bonding. So if we apply a lot of pressure and heat we should be able to force all the carbon bonds to break from whatever they're attached to and make them reconnect to each other. But why so much in the first place? After reading chapters 15 and 16 in my organic book, I would postulate that it is the fact that coal is made of mostly aromatic compounds. Aromatic compounds are extremely stable through the resonance they have as a result of their bonding patterns. That means that an aromatic compound will need a lot of arm twisting to get it to break up because they want to remain in their very stable conformation. So... we have to apply a lot of heat and pressure to break up these stable compounds in order to form the carbon-carbon bonds that we want. That is my theory based on what i just read... chemistry is awesome!

oh and i also got to explain what the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fat was to my compadre kimberely at the crisis center today!