Why marbles bounce

Follow-up on this answer. Learn more physics! Related Questions. Still Curious? About The Author. Betty Betty Boiron is a busy homemaker, former engineer and teacher, and homeschooling mom of two. She strives to teach her kids through fun, interactive activities, and hope to help others do the same. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

Do you hear a ringing sound? That vibration is energy. The longer it lasts, the better the material is likely to be at bouncing. The rubber bell… not so much. When a rubber ball hits a surface, it compresses and deforms before returning to its original shape. Quite a lot of energy is lost in this process. Although it is not a crystal like its chemical relative, quartz SiO 2 , glass is rigid and does not deform much when it strikes a surface.

The surface also attempts to regain its shape and pushes up on the marble. This all happens because glass is an elastic material.

This is similar to what you see in tempered glass the stuff the side windows of a car might be made of, which are harder to break than you might think. Marble has relatively high porosity when compared with tiles as it is a stone with a robust crystalline structure. It is for this reason marble can be polished to shine.

Tiles have relatively low porosity and are thus perfect to be used in high moisture areas like bathrooms and kitchen. As quickly as possible, get the marbles into the pot of ice water. Leave the marbles in for about 3 minutes, then take them out. They should be cracked quite nicely. Ooh and aah over the glimmery marbles, but bear in mind that they break easily if you drop them on the floor.

Originally Answered: If you were to drop a small marble sculpture a few feet off the ground onto a hard surface ceramic or wood , would it break? Almost certainly yes.

Stone has a low modulus of elasticity, and so will fracture instead of bending.