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Can a hydraulic press crush a diamond into oblivion?

The hulking strength of a hydraulic press goes up against a diamond in a high-priced showdown for the ages.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser

We've all heard it: Diamond is the hardest material in the world (though there is some debate about that). The Hydraulic Press Channel, a YouTube channel dedicated to crushing every object it can get ahold of under the mighty power of a hydraulic press, decided to see how a diamond would hold up against its beast of a squishing machine.

The press has previously gone up against Lego toys and even another hydraulic press, and it pretty much always emerges triumphant. But YouTube audiences are still tuning in at the rate of millions of views for new videos. The latest dropped on Saturday and it shows a precious gemstone going into the crucible. At 1.2 carats, the lab-grown diamond is quite large, big enough to catch your eye if set into jewelry. You can guess what happens after the press descends on the unsuspecting gem.

The last time we saw such impressive diamond-related crushing action, it involved Christopher Reeves' Superman squeezing the bejeezus out of a lump of coal and fusing it into a perfectly faceted diamond in the 1983 film "Superman III." The hydraulic press is more about destruction than creation. Make sure you stick around for the slo-mo replay.