Ive been looking everywhere for an answer to this,can anyone direct me to a part of the syllabus which talks about toughness of sapphires and quartz?
Hi if you go on the net and look up Moh’s scale
it will tell you the hardness
Quartz 7
Corundum (Sapphire) 9
regards
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yeah but hardness and toughness are too different things,so i want the toughness,but youve tols me the hardness,ie the mohs scale.
So ur answer is incorrect in regards to toughness.
Yes you are right I was looking at Hardness, but considering neither of these gems have perfect cleavage and neither are prone to chipping easily, one would think that because sapphire is a lot harder then it does not wear as quickly as quartz. Toughness in this case really does not rate in either of these gemstones. Where something like Jade it does.
once again hope this helps