Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- We only have three photos of Taylor Swift’s engagement ring so far—and only one close-up—but it already looks different from photo to photo.
- Depending on its cut, lighting, and angle, a diamond appears to change because of reflection and refraction, which causes all those rainbow sparkles.
- No word on when we’ll see Swift’s rock again, but it will probably look at least slightly different in the next paparazzi photo.
This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.
By now, the whole world knows about Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce—and that ring.
Yes, even we at Pop Mech care, because rings are tiny marvels of engineering: shaped, cut, and designed to balance beauty with strength. And this one is worth a closer look.
So far, only one closeup photo of Swift’s engagement ring has surfaced, but it’s enough to confirm a few things: it’s set with a cushion-cut oval diamond in yellow gold and mounted on an engraved band that Kelce designed in collaboration with Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry. The rest remains speculation.
The Ring will likely show up in many more photos leading up to the Swift-Kelce wedding (whenever that is), but don’t expect it to look the same in every shot. That’s because diamonds bend, scatter, and reflect light in different ways depending on the angle of view and the quality of the lighting. How the diamond might appear from other points of view besides the classic hand pose can also be affected by factors like its cut, color, and size, which is predictably huge. All of which makes it a lot more complicated—and expensive—than a friendship bracelet.
“It’s a very romantic cut because the original cushion cuts were made to capture and refract candlelight,” gemologist Ashley Fox recently told Forbes. “Diamond cutters don’t cut stones like this anymore, so Travis would’ve had to find a rough-cut diamond and have it cut like this if it’s not an antique.”
How diamonds reflect and refract light impacts how they appear at different angles. Refraction occurs when light changes direction as it moves between materials at different speeds. This results in the light bending away as it passes through a diamond, and is also what makes a straw look like it’s broken in two if you stick it in a glass of water.
Since diamonds are often cut into prisms, refracted light particles passing through can appear as a rainbow—white light is actually a conglomeration of all the visible colors on the electromagnetic spectrum. How light is refracted depends on the angle of the prism and where planes (each facet is a plane) on that prism are positioned at the moment.
Because different wavelengths of light are refracted more or less depending on their frequency (with violet refracting the most and red the least), those wavelengths will bend at different angles, and white light will separate into its rainbow of components. This is known as dispersion. Maximizing dispersion in a diamons requires a very specific cut that is neither too shallow nor too deep.
A diamond as large as Swift’s also has so many facets at which that dispersion process can begin, and is bound to scatter sparks of colored light. If future photos of Swift’s engagement ring capture a shower of rainbow sparks, refraction and dispersion are working their magic.
As if diamonds didn’t glitter enough, they also dazzle with reflection. The atoms of a diamond are arranged in a crystal lattice structure. Light entering the gemstone will interact with the electrons in those atoms and cause some wavelengths of light to be absorbed and some to be reflected. Which wavelengths are reflected or absorbed depends on the cut of the diamond, and the rare old mine cut is intended to come alive in candlelight more than sunlight. Any impurities or defects could also influence its sparkle.
There’s also internal reflection, or light passing through before it’s bent and reflected internally by the diamond’s facets. This can cause the diamond to look lighter or darker, depending on angle and lighting. The diamond in Taylor Swift’s ring is a white diamond. But if it looks slightly darker in any photos leading up to her wedding day, your eyes aren’t mistaken. (Gray diamonds exist, but Swift’sa is definitely white.)
Just wait for the oncoming barrage of ring photos—you’ll have plenty of opportunities to compare how this diamond appears at different angles. As Swift once sang, “A diamond’s gotta shine.”
