16+ Pics That Show The Powerful Ways Things Can Change Over Time

Although many of us can recall playing with these until we wore their outer shells away, this is probably the most wear and tear a ball can take without simply falling apart.

It's hard to tell how cool this fan can possibly keep things now that its blades are so droopy, but it obviously can't help itself the way it helps us.

There's nothing like laying a new carpet next to an old one to make us think, "Oh, that's what that's supposed to look like."

The longer it sits there, the closer the elements get to burying it in the sand. At this rate, it ought to make for a surprise underground discovery in about 10 years or so.

Both of these Canadian quarters depict Queen Elizabeth II, but it's not hard to tell which one's from 1967 and which one's from 2017.

After spending years in direct sunlight, any identifying features in the photo have been more or less bleached off.

If this person's freezer is leaking, the water seemed to adjust to the tray's shape before slowly towering upward.

Apparently, it was left in this exact place for so long that it kept one strip looking just like it did when this book was first printed.

That "Got Milk?" ad also makes it pretty easy to figure out when this all started.

I guess it's kind of a good sign when the floor in a barbershop is like this.

After all, it shows the people working there are pretty attentive and make sure their planned styles look good from all angles.

When a punching bag fell off the ceiling at a gym, a little investigation uncovering that the top part of the clip holding it up had finally had all the wear and tear it could take.

We know that water and plants can wear away a stone if you give them enough time, but we can apparently also add feet to that list.

It turns out that when the tree kept growing, so did the branch. When that happened, it managed to both break the shell into pieces and carry each piece off in different directions.

Specifically, the winds blowing from Lake Michigan were apparently strong enough for long enough to blast the paint off one side of the post.

Although it's hard to argue with how wintery it makes this thing look, it seems likely that it'll also be harder to see what's happening behind you.

So it kinda sucks in a pretty way.

One can only imagine how much they would have to tell us if trees could talk.

It's pretty wild to actually be able to pinpoint which kid was born after digital photography became a thing.

However, as this lot became abandoned, dirt filled the holes in it, which provided the right materials for the little accidental garden we can now see today.

It'd be interesting to see what would even happen if you used it now. Would the ball still make it through or has the net hardened enough to trap it?

According to the welder, these are all sparks that became magnetized to the clamp, which gives it some strange new decorations.

Basically, enough snowy boots passed through the grate in this footbridge to provide enough materials to make a little hill underneath.

The weight of those tiles have caused the spire to warp over time. I know there's a long time until it warps enough to fall, but I do not want to be standing under it when it does.

We all know in our brains that steam is moisture is water, but we usually don't really think of it as water in the practical sense. That's why seeing this ice buildup is a little bit surprising.

This just goes to show who we all consider important. The name underneath Isaac Newton's signature has become worn out from all the people whose hands touch it when they point out Newton's name.

The paint and wood on this screen door has worn down where people's right hands would grab the handle, while the door that left-handed people would reach for remains mostly intact.

Everyone's feet and shoes have worn down this subway flooring to look totally smooth, but when you get closer to the pole you can see there used to be a pattern.

Stapling a poster to a pole is easy, but getting that staple out is much harder. That's why this pole is covered in the staples of hundreds of people hanging signs up over the years.

The slow and steady pressure of this tree growing under the rock eventually had enough force to shatter the rock and grow up through it.

Over time the water coming from that drainpipe managed to erode away the layer of cement covering it. Slow and steady really does win the race.

The letter "Q" is so rarely used in names that this one has been sat on the shelf long enough for the color to fade. It's kind of sad in a way, because anyone with a Q name is going to have one letter that looks totally different from the others.