Say you had a ring and you buried it a few feet below the ground. Would it stay a ring, or would it just break back down into the lump of metal it was before it was mined.
In: Chemistry
The key to your question is how you define “eventually”.
**Eventually** everything in the universe will break down to a homogeneous pool of hydrogen atoms equally spaced throughout the whole span of space.
Depending on the material of the ring, burying it in the ground will cause it to breakdown at different rates.
A gold ring, which is notoriously an inert material (meaning it doesn’t oxidize in the air) will last as a piece of gold for a very very long time.
An Iron ring, which is notoriously reactive with oxygen, will relatively quickly rust away (provided there’s enough oxygen present to facilitate rusting).
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