The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France"("The Blue of France") or "Le Bijou du Roi" ("the Jewel of the King"), is a large, 45.52-carat (9.10 g), deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, and exhibits red phosphorescence after exposure to ultraviolet light. It is classified as a Type IIb diamond, and is notorious for supposedly being cursed, although the current owner considers it a valuable asset with no reported problems associated with it. It has a long recorded history with few gaps in which it changed hands numerous times on its way from India to France to Britain and to the United States. It has been described as the "most famous diamond in the world".
Read more about Hope Diamond: Physical Properties, Replicas
Famous quotes containing the words hope and/or diamond:
“Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish to know only to talk. Thus we would not take a sea voyage—if we were never to speak of it—for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever communicating it.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)