Question

How can you tell if a object has elastic properties

Answer 1

bounce it on the floor?

Answer 2

if you bounce an inelastic crystal on most floors the elasticity of the floor would still create a bounce. if you can change it's shape using force and it returns to its original shape it is elastic.

Answer 3

possibly "ping" it a little. you could argue that bouncing on the floor is a form of pinging, but it probably isn't a good idea for a piece of cut crystal such as a drinking glass. But, over a very short range before brittle fractures etc "creep" in, I think that they are elastic. You find out by "resonating" it, and forms of res include "pinging" and "singing". Acoustic resonance is what i'm yakking on about ...

Answer 4

however, there's a slight problem with my "logic". Doesn't sound travel through most mediums/media ? Isn't plasticene and putty considered to be inelastic ? Well, yes, in terms, of collisions. But sound may very well travel through lumps of each. Water may be considered to be inelastic, but it still supports sound waves - ultrasonic pinging in submarines.
Seems possible that over the right RANGE of deformations, a lot of substances/materials are elastic ... hence the idea, maybe, of the ELASTIC LIMIT before PLASTIC DEFORMATIO occurs ...

Answer 5

N missing from above

Answer 6

which brings me to a sort of "pole vault" of "logic" in terms of "elasticity" ...
It's the idea of "pinging" as an impulse (similar idea to "bouncing" but this time applied to vacuum/space.
If sending a wave through something could be regarded as a "test" of elasticity, then what about sending a light wave through a vacuum - how else does the light from the sun reach mother earth ? There's NOMINALLY nowt between sun and earth except a few "rocks" ?
And, yet the "vacuum" seems to be "elastic" enough to support a light wave ????

Well, one answer offered years ago was the idea of the "luminiferous aether" (spelling very uncertain). Basically, it was "something" that was "everywhere" and allowed light pass through it. But, a bit like "The Scarlet Pimpernel" of "They seek him here, they seek him there ... " fame, scientists couldn't FIND it. One bloke, USA's AA Michelson, even seems to have got a Nobel prize in physics for "not finding it" (the fringes didn't move ... the [guard ?] dog didn't bark).

Maybe Herr and Frau Maric-Einstein MAY help here. Suppose we say that between the sun and the earth there is "space-time". And with this idea, if "space-time" (whatever that actually means) can be distorted elastically, then we can give light permission to travel in an apparent vacuum. Maybe the Einsteins would have said that the "vacuum" idea is a red herring (I'v never seen a red herring), and that "space-time" and being able to distort "space-time" is a "better" answer than thinking of vacuums/ua or "luminiferous aethers".