Would it be feasible to turn human corpses into diamonds?

Yes, it is being done now.

It is legally acceptable and is also morally acceptable. My friend has a diamond of her mom. She cherishes it.

The carbon is all bound in molecules. You would need to extract the elemental carbon first, and separate it from the rest. Otherwise your “diamond” will be full of impurities.

I know it’s possible to have a loved one’s ashes turned into a diamond already. I’m not sure what process they use, but I’ve heard of people doing it as a way to keep their loved one close by.

Edited to add: Here’s the process one site uses to make diamonds from creamated remains.

It’s morally acceptable to me, I’d loved to have had this option when my Grandfather passed. Right now, I’m hoping I can have this done when my other grandparents, doggie and my mom pass on.

@Neizvestnaya Your doggie?

now that’s a diamond in the ruff

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies: I’ll bet he’ll make the best crystal since he’s already our little prince.

Why not? If that Japanese scientist can turn sewage into meat, well….I’ll go for the corpse diamond any day of the week over a feces burger.

Amazing! I thought for sure that this was just another silly fantasy, doomed to be disproved once again by the collective. It’s rather disappointing that I didn’t think of it first, though… One question left, I don’t believe anyone answered how big a diamond could be created from an average-sized human. Quite small, correct?

@jellyfish3232 According to LifeGem’s site, they can do diamonds from .25ct to over 1.5ct and in a variety of cuts and colors. Apparently they can also get more than one (up to 100) diamonds from the cremated remains.

What would the cost of such a thing be?

From what I saw on the sites I looked at, the price varies depending on the size, cut, and color you want and how many you are purchasing. The prices I noticed were all several thousand dollars.

I guess I could do it with my dad’s ashes, if his voice, in the back of my head, wasn’t telling me that there are much better uses for my hard earned money than turning him into a diamond. My dad, if he were alive, would just shake his head, and tell me that while I could certainly do whatever I wanted with my money, he had better things to do with his. So, I wouldn’t do it. That voice of his, in the back of my head, is pretty loud and persistent sometimes, but my dad is still helping me stay on the straight and narrow even after death.

Though, thinking about it… I had both my cats cremated and if it didn’t seem like such a silly waste of money to me, the idea of having a matching pair of diamond earrings made from them and having them with me all the time, one in each ear, is kind of sweet. I would like that, I think. I would wear Bugsy in my left ear, because he was a little devil sometimes, and Casper in my right ear, because he was pure goodness. :-)

Gives new meaning to “family jewels”!

He: Who’s that diamond on your finger?

She: Oh, that’s my ex! : )

@CaptainHarley Well, they do say, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

I think by the time somebody’s been cremated the carbon has become CO2, and gone.
Wouldn’t expect they could make a diamond out of the ash can they?

Huh, well from the above answers it seems this is done, but I would have said that I think the difficulty/cost in making diamonds lies not with finding a source of carbon, but with the process of heating it to very high temperatures and applying huge amounts of pressure.

@dabbler Yes, they can make a diamond from the cremated remains. Most of the companies that can do it prefer to use their cremation process, but they say they can do it from remains that have already been cremated through other processes as well.

An alternative for the human corpse is boarding a starship and “landing” here
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/08/26/astronomers-find-diamond-planet-spinning-in-space-115875-23371673/

@Seaofclouds Incredible !