Yesterday, Today - And Tomorrow: Diamond Fingerprints
Series
- Series Name
- Living Tomorrow
Issue
Story
- Story No. within this Issue
- 2 / 4
- Summary
- COI synopsis: The last decade has seen a man on the moon and the birth of a test tube baby. Yet for a century or more much of our everyday lives and the way we do things has remained remarkably unchanged. It’s just the occasional leap of imagination that can suddenly transform the conventional way of doing things; overnight turning established technology into outdated tradition. Sorting, valuing, identifying diamonds is a skill that’s been refined over centuries. But a British physicist has now developed an X-ray technique that can reveal a diamond’s hidden "fingerprint" - a fingerprint based on invisible flaws in the crystal structure. It uniquely identifies a diamond - and it can’t be changed even by recutting.
- Keywords
- Science and technology; Mining; Engineering; Inventions and discoveries
- Written sources
- COI Microfilm Roll 55 [BFI National Archive] Used for synopsis
- COI Reference
- MI 1458/240
- Credits:
-
- Sponsor
- Central Office of Information (COI)
- Sponsor
- Foreign & Commonwealth Office
- Cutter
- Laurence Williamson
This series is held by:
Film Archive
- Name
- British Film Institute (BFI)
- For BFI National Archive enquiries:
nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk
For commercial/footage reuse enquiries:
footage.films@bfi.org.uk - Web
- http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web
- Phone
- 020 7255 1444
- Fax
- 020 7580 7503
- Address
- 21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN - Notes
- The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).
- Series held
- View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)
How to cite this record
'Yesterday, Today - And Tomorrow: Diamond Fingerprints', Living Tomorrow Issue No. 240, 1979. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/newsonscreen/search/index.php/story/325992 (Accessed 27 Jul 2025)