For those confused about the title, there's a joke that every moderator has a "diamond hammer" (diamond from the little `♦` by the username). In a [chat discussion](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/11540?m=14796232#14796232), it was brought to my attention that a diamond *can* burn (which makes total sense because it's pure carbon) after I got a notification in orange in the topbar of SE.
Anyway my question is **why can something so durable be able to burn?** I would imagine that there would be a relationship between flammability and durability, especially since metal cannot burn.*…