Why do certain materials make more noise than others?

Question

For example, glass and metal dishes create so much noise that the gods would hear it, but plastic masks a lot of noise when I put dishes away.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

When an object is struck, its material absorbs the energy of the strike. Hard materials don’t give like soft materials do, so more of the energy is reflected back out of the material. That reflected energy is vibrational, so your ears pick it up and you hear it.