Durability of materials in ideal conditions

How long can objects made of hard material last at room temperature in otherwise ideal conditions?

If left outdoors on Earth, over the course of millions of years, any material will be eroded by wind, rain, temperature fluctuations etc.

But what if you take an object of some hard ceramic like aluminum oxide, and keep it in an environment where the temperature is always an unvarying 15 Celsius, no wind ever blows, not a drop of rain ever falls, no force ever disturbs the object? Where nothing would deform it except for the sheer random migration of atoms? Suppose some handwavium were to keep these undisturbed conditions for trillions of years, would the object last that long?

posted about 4 years ago

rwallace‭

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