I have been occasionally weighing a gold ring I wear continuesly to see how fast it would wear. Surprisingly, I found the rate of wear over the last 7
years has been almost perfectly linear, (correlation coefficient = 0.999984), with a rate of 30.9 ug a day (my balance measures to 10 ug resolution,
so I can see detect weight loss over a single day). At this rate, it'll be gone in 432 years.
I would have expected the wear to be mostly due to friction with doorhandles, sand, etc. etc., but apparently not so because I don't measure any
additional wear after such activities as digging in the sand with my hands.
So, any theories as to where my wedding ring is going? BromicAcid - 19-8-2010 at 15:48
I remember reading this awhile back and your thread reminded me of this. According to the paper most of the metal is abraded by the skin.
[Edited on 8/19/2010 by BromicAcid]psychokinetic - 19-8-2010 at 22:39
Your blacksmith has been cheating you out of your gold, sire.hissingnoise - 20-8-2010 at 02:38
Quote:
I have been occasionally weighing a gold ring I wear continuesly to see how fast it would wear?
Yep! That certainly gets my vote for the most futile and pointless exercise ever undertaken. . .
Wizzard - 20-8-2010 at 05:03
Another reason (on top of not liking gold) my ring will be either tungsten or platinum hissingnoise - 20-8-2010 at 05:23
It's that piss-yellow colour? Iridium?
phlogiston - 22-8-2010 at 15:24
Bromic, thanks, that was a fun read ("rock concert (clapping hands)... 17mg") and answered my questions. I wouldn't have believed anyone had gone
through such great lengths to satisfy their curiosity regarding this. neutron activation...respect!
Good luck making a tungsten ring btw. Neither casting nor cutting will be easy.aonomus - 22-8-2010 at 15:53
On the bright side, if you do a daily measurement, it means you will keep your fingers slim enough to remove the ring (instead of letting them get fat
and never being able to remove it or clean under it (ew)).
How many data points did you measure to come to your figures in the OP? What is your average daily work (desk, construction, water/marine), there are
lots of variables to think about.unionised - 23-8-2010 at 11:01
We noted a similar loss of material from one of our check weights in the lab A 500mg Ta weight lost about 0.25 µg (IIRC) per day on average.
(Tantalum is pretty hard so the idea that a W or Pt ring is safe from wear is questionable).
We taught the bloke doing the check weighing not to scratch the surface of the weight and got some plastic tipped tweezers; the weight loss rate
dropped considerably.
