London - Marriage is meant to last a lifetime. So, too, surely, are the gold wedding rings that go with it?
Sadly, gold rings are not as durable as you might think. A gold ring will lose a fraction of its weight each day as it rubs against the wearer’s finger.
Georg Steinhauser, a chemist at the Vienna University of Technology, calculated how much gold goes missing by weighing his own wedding ring each week for a year. He found that it lost 0.12 micrograms a week - a minute amount considering a single grain of sand weighs around 13 micrograms.
However, the cumulative loss of gold across a whole city is striking. Steinhauser estimates that in Vienna, the rings of its 300,000 married couples lose approximately 2.2kg of 18-carat gold each year. At current values that’s £28,164.
So, if you’re yet to choose an engagement ring, perhaps you should consider a diamond band.
Gold may wear away, but diamonds are forever. - Daily Mail