Robert Clark wrote:

It's referred to as "polyyne" he

Polyyne said to be 40 times harder than diamond.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2111

The research is published he

Harder than Diamond: Determining the Cross-Sectional Area and Young's
Modulus of Molecular Rods.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 44, Issue 45, Pages
7315-7483 (November 18, 2005).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/c...30826/ABSTRACT

The research actually only calculated Young's modulus. It didn't
measure it.
Also the hardness claim is coming from the fact the calculated Young's
modulus was 40 times that of diamond, and hardness is correlated to
Young's modulus.

Bob Clark

Let's ask a simple low-tech question: Are Israeli diamond cutters
lining up to put it on their wheels?

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz3.pdf