How things work: H. Tracy Hall, 1919-2008

H. Tracy Hall, 1919-2008; Scientist Created Artificial Diamonds


Click on the following for the very intriguing games of the great Tracy Hall.

http://www.htracyhall.org/history/bio.htm


Following are some highlights from the above:

It would be safe to say that there is no American whose life is not significantly impacted by the uses of industrial diamonds. Much of the credit for this can be given a young farm boy who enjoyed reading about Thomas Edison in the public library.

In July 1970, Dr. Hall presented his PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN HIGH PRESSURE. Following are selected quotes:

On December 16, 1954, I discovered how to make diamonds.

The way to discovery was not easy …

I attempted many hundreds of indirect (mainly "carbon releasing") approaches a period of about a year but to no avail, and I was becoming discouraged. Then, one wintry morning, I broke open the sample cell after removing it from the Belt. It cleaved near a tantalum disk used to bring in current for resistance heating. My hands began to tremble; my heart beat rapidly; my knees weakened and no longer gave support. My eyes had caught the flashing light from dozens of tiny triangular faces of octahedral crystals that were stuck to the tantalum and I knew that diamonds had finally been made by man.

In April of 1955 I decided to leave the company that I had aspired to work for in my youth. There were several reasons for doing this, most compelling among them the continued lack of financial support for the things I wished to do. I had come to "understand'' the politics of the expensive double-ram press. After committing itself to this approach, management could not face a cheap alternative. But after synthesizing diamond I expected that money to be no object and could understand no longer.