Rosa's heart was racing from the four cups of coffee she had just finished, but she thought she might be having a heart attack.
A carat is a unit of weight for diamonds and other gemstones. One carat equals 200 milligrams (0.200 grams). There are 453 grams in a pound (1,000 grams to a kilogram). Therefore, if your fiancee weighs 170 pounds, you have a 385,050-carat fiancee! A karat, when used with gold, is a unit of purity-- 24-karat gold is pure gold, but usually you mix gold with a metal like copper or silver to make jewelry (because pure gold is too soft). Each karat indicates 1/24th of the whole.
Since an ounce is 28.3 grams, a diamond has to weigh 141.5 carats to equal an ounce or 2264 carats to equal a pound. The term karat refers to a ratio and is used in describing the fineness of gold. Ten karat gold is 10/24ths (41%) pure gold. Fourteen karat gold is 14/24ths (58%).