Do-It-Yourself Emeralds for Dummies

Lab-grown synthetic emeralds

One of our interns claims to have seen every episode of "Big Bang Theory" several times, and will happily regale you with tales of Sheldon Cooper's childhood science experiments – the time he built his own CAT scanner, for instance, or his attempt to build a personal Takomak nuclear reactor. Apparently, a modern-day Sheldon once wanted to know "How to Make Synthetic Emeralds," and the folks at eHow.com were only too happy to "answer. Want some giggles? Check out what English teacher Audrey Farley told the OQ at Sciencing.com...

That Farley is utterly incompetent to provide this answer is quite clear from her description of how natural emeralds form:

"...synthetic emeralds are artificially created in a lab, while real emeralds are grown when the natural forces of the Earth apply heat and pressurize organic material to form the precious stones. "

In case she didn't know, the chemical formula of an emerald is Be_₃Al_₂SiO_₆ – there is neither carbon nor hydrogen in that formula, which most certainly rules out "heat and pressurize organic material" as a factor in the origin of natural emeralds. Dumbass.

Once she got that misinformation out of the way, Farley forged ahead to provide her version of "instructions" for synthesizing gem-quality beryl. According to Audrey, you.

1. Pressurize gem constituents in a rotating, gold-lined and airtight chamber at about 450 degrees C...
2. Suspend a natural yellow beryl seed using a platinum wire to initiate growth.
3. [more bullshit]

You add a little HCl and then you wait... for several weeks. Months, even...

Well, that sounds like fun. It also sounds like something everybody can do in their spare time... or perhaps not. We notice, for what it's worth, that none of Farley's three supposed references describe this method of synthesizing emeralds. Could it be possible that our Dumbass of the Day somehow managed to come up with a heretofore unknown method?

Somehow we doubt it! Besides, we don't know where to get a "beryl seed"...

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