How come holding your ears completely doesn’t stop you from still hearing noise?

Question

I understand that the ear drum vibrates to create sound, but when your ears are 100% plugged, how can sound waves vibrate the drum? And I’m not talking about not hearing a jet engine, I’m talking about things more along the lines of everyday noise.

In: 11

Answer 1

> I understand that the ear drum vibrates to create sound

It’s more that the eardrums vibrate to best pass that vibration from air to the ossicles, which lever and vibrate to best pass that vibration to the oval window, another drum like surface on the cochlea. Which vibrates to pass that vibration into the fluid filled cochlea, which makes the basilar membrane move…

So you see, the ear drum is more about one step in passing that vibration on to the cochlea, than it is about ‘creating’ sound. Which then explains what others were talking about, how sound can actually skip the ear drum, or be transmitted through bone (bone conduction)