🔊 Sounds around us

Sound is what happens when something shakes, even a little, and sets the air around it shaking too. That shaking spreads out in every direction like ripples in a puddle, and when it reaches you, you hear it.

Rain taps and patters on windows and roofs, quietly when it drizzles and much louder in a big shower.

Your ear catches shaking air and funnels it down a short tunnel to a tiny stretched skin called the eardrum. When the eardrum shakes, little bones and a curled tube pass the message on, and your brain decides whether it was a bird, a door or your name.

We whisper when we want only one person to hear us, so we use almost no voice and let the air do most of the talking.

A sound is loud when whatever made it shook the air a lot, and quiet when it barely nudged it. Your ears are so good at this that they can notice a whisper and still handle a drum, though very loud sounds can hurt them.

When a door shuts fast it smacks the door frame, and that quick smack pushes the air hard enough to make a bang.

Yes, your ears keep working all the time, so closing your eyes actually makes sounds easier to notice.

An echo is a sound that bounces. When your voice meets a big flat surface, it cannot pass through, so it turns around and travels back to your ears a little later.