Paper Crackles!

Find a piece of paper. Holding it next to your ear, crumple it slowly into a ball. What do you hear? Crackling noise!

Where does the noise come from? Take your crumpled paper, flatten it out part-way, and then wiggle it back and forth. Can you make one spot jump in and out? When the spot jumps in and out, it makes noise.

Crackling noise happens when some of the noises are much louder than others. We measure some crackles to be more than a thousand times louder than other crackles!

We're trying to find out what make some crackles louder than others. We've figured out that the loud crackles are NOT because a bigger piece of the paper moved. We think it might have something to do with the amount the paper moves, but we're still working on it...