Uses Of Gemstones

Gemstones are very useful for the humankind. These stones have been used since time immemorial for ornaments and jewellry. Precious stones have been fixed on crowns of royals all over the world for thousands of year. In modern times also gemstones are used as one of the many status symbols.

Apart from showing off, these stones have made inroads into the industry also. Diamond tools are very popular in industry. Diamond is the hardest of all substances therefore it has the ability to cut any material however hard it may be. Grinders and cutters are embedded with diamonds to give excellent results. Diamond-embedded cutters can slice through large pieces of concrete and steel. Diamond is also used for lathe machine cutting tools. Its because of exceptional hardness of diamonds and not their glimmer that they are used for cutting tools. Here one thing should be kept in mind that diamonds used in industry can't be used for the ornaments or jewellery. The industrial diamonds are extremely small and are produced synthetically. They are smaller than the tip of a sharpened pencil.

Some people use gemstones to cure disease or to have good effects on health. They wear rings having gemstones. A wide range of gemstones are available for different desired effects on health. This has been regarded by most people as a superstition. I, for one, don't believe that wearing gemstones can have any effect on a person's health. But, I have an interesting anecdote regarding this topic. Whether gemstones have effects on a person's health or not was discussed in my 'Materials and Metallurgy' class. My teacher said that wearing gemstones can have effects on health of a person. He said that light enters these stones(as they are translucnet), its wavelength is changed by the stone and this changed-wavelength light enters the skin and interacts with blood. Since different stones have different colors, light's wavelength changes differently for different stones and consequently effects health in different ways. You don't believe this? Let me inform you that the person who told this to me is Mr. Khursheed Mahmood and he is a Ph.D. from Cranfield Institute of Technology, Bedford, England. He is also Co-Chairman of Mechanical Engineering Department of NED UET, Karachi these days.