This isn't about my ring theory though, it's about everyone's. I think the last continuity discussion we had was about whether or not Knuckles's story in S&K really happened, and that was 2 years ago. So I thought we could use a break from the continuing chronicles of epic incompetence we've been immersed in and have a little fun.
So, how do you think rings work? To help get started, I've compiled this list of all of the known behavior of rings that need to be explained. I don't think anyone wants to hear exact, realistic physics; it just has to make some sense and obey the laws of conservation of energy. Some of these can be dismissed as programming failures or non-cannon, but of course the idea is to do that as little as possible. You wouldn't think it at first brush, but when you look deep into it there are really very few explanations that can work and they're not what you'd expect.
I'd post my theories to help get the ball rolling, but to avoid the already imminent tl;dr I'll wait.-They float and spin seemingly indefinitely in their original position. This means they either have no mass at that point or are being held up by a force with seemingly limitless energy. Gusts of wind such as would be found in Sky Chase or Sky sanctuary don't cause them to move, yet they are moving along with the Earth's rotation and revolution.
-They have a clear habit of appearing in rows and geometric patterns.
-The ring vault in Casinopolis. They clearly have mass at that point, and they don't disappear despite having been moved from their original position. They neither spin nor float.
-They can be found all over the Earth, floating aimlessly in the upper thermosphere, on the moon, and in special stages.
-Rings are moved from their starting position by the lightning shield, but dropped rings aren't affected.
-Rings are not affected by enemies or rising ground (Flying Battery is the first example that comes to mind)
-Sonic still falls backwards when he gets hit.
-Rings protect you from bullets, spikes, energy beams, fire, electricity, etc, but not from pits, drowning, being crushed, or instant death beams (Eggman's beam during the Metal Sonic race in Sonic CD)
-In some games, you don't lose all of your rings when hit.
-Rings that Sonic drops come out spinning, bounce, and are affected by Eggman's ring vacuums.
-Dropped rings disappear after a few seconds.
-Dropped rings can be recollected and are still worth 1 whole ring, even after protecting the holder from damage.
-What I lovingly refer to as the half ring quandary. There's no such thing as a fraction of a ring. When Sonic untransforms during a fraction of a second, he never has a fraction of a ring. That means that it either disappears completely when any fraction of its energy is used, or it recharges if anything less than all of its energy is used.
-Ring boxes.
-Big ring portals and the fact that they're worth 50 rings if you've got all the emeralds.
-In Reactive Factory in Sonic R, there's a machine that spits out a seemingly limitless amount of rings.
-The buttons in SA1 and SA2 cause trails of rings to appear seemingly indefinitely.
-The rings in Sonic R can be seen reappearing from nowhere. I think this is the only game you'll see that.
-Tails and Eggman's mechs can absorb rings, but not all inanimate objects can.
-Sonic needs to be holding 50 rings to transform, but none of the rings are used up during the transformation process and it only takes 1 ring at any given instant to sustain Super form (in union with the power of the Chaos Emeralds).
-In SA2 vs. mode, every 20 rings collected allows the player to use a special move. These moves don't use up any rings, but can't be repeated until another 20 rings are collected.
-Super form drains 1 ring per second.
-Light dash.