A gold wedding band symbolizes permanence, but bits of it fade away as a marriage endures, scraping against the marital skin every moment that metal and finger convene. Georg Stein hauser, a chemist at Vienna University of Technology, calculated how much goes missing, how quickly and at what cost.
Stein hauser's study, Quantification of the Abrasive Wear of a Gold Wedding Ring, appear in a 2008 issue of Gold Bulletin, a quarterly journal published by the World Gold Council, whose stated goal is "to excite desire for gold by articulating core truths and discovering new opportunities".
Stein hauser got married. A week later he weigh his wedding ring. He weighed it every week over the next year. The report shows a graph of the weight, revealing an average loss of about .12mg a week.
Stein hauser estimated that, every year, the city of Vienna, with somewhat more than 300,000 married couples, suffers an collective loss from its rings of about 2.2kg of 18-carat gold, worth (at the time) approximately 35,000 euros.
Stein hauser's study, Quantification of the Abrasive Wear of a Gold Wedding Ring, appear in a 2008 issue of Gold Bulletin, a quarterly journal published by the World Gold Council, whose stated goal is "to excite desire for gold by articulating core truths and discovering new opportunities".
Stein hauser got married. A week later he weigh his wedding ring. He weighed it every week over the next year. The report shows a graph of the weight, revealing an average loss of about .12mg a week.
Stein hauser estimated that, every year, the city of Vienna, with somewhat more than 300,000 married couples, suffers an collective loss from its rings of about 2.2kg of 18-carat gold, worth (at the time) approximately 35,000 euros.
