Diamond is claimed to be the hardest known substance in nature just how hard is it? If you took a hammer and hit a diamond with it would it shatter or be crushed or damaged?
Hardness and toughness are two differenct characteristics. Diamonds are very hard, but they’re also brittle. Yes, if you hit them with a hammer in the wrong (or right, depending on your intent) way they absolutely can shatter. Diamond cutters occasionally screw up when cleaving a diamond (splitting into smaller diamonds), shattering it into worthless shards. They try real hard not to do that.
It would shatter. It is hard, in the sense that it is difficult to scratch or deform, but it is crystalline matter and can break along its cleavage planes. Otherwise you couldn’t cut it.
And on preview, Q.E.D. also has the answer.
Depends on where you hit it. Diamond is very hard, but it’s also brittle. If you hit it on a fracture plane, it’ll split. Diamond-cutting depends on this property, actually.
Edited: A perfect trio of “missed it by THAT much”…
I remember reading in some book that the cutter of one of the famous large diamonds (Hope? Cullinan?) fainted with relief when he made a clean cut. It sounds to me like a bit of an urban legend, but i guess it’s possible, given how much those stones are worth.
You are confusing your terms and/or definitions. Diamonds are hard yet brittle. It doesn’t take an extraordinary amount of force to break one. If it did there wouldn’t be so many diamond cutters. On the other hand, something like a squash ball can be hit with tremendous force by a hammer and not shatter. The squash ball is not hard and it is not brittle. The diamond cutter could whack on it all day with his hammer and tools and only get frustrated.
And look slightly foolish 
A good comparison is concrete. It’s very hard, but it’s also pretty easy to break.
Where I grew up, there’s a lot of sandstone. When I was a child, I was facsinated by how I could tap it with my finger and it felt very hard, yet even I could snap a piece off the edge of a sandstone.
Wow, I would have gotten this question totally wrong.
You guys just fought my ignorance! 