WHY DOES A BALL BOUNCE HIGHER ON A HARD SURFACE THAN A SOFT SURFACE?
I’m a tennis player and I know from experience that on a ‘hard’ court, asphalt or concrete, the ball bounces with more ‘oomph’ than on a ‘soft’ surface, like a clay court. The reason is that the ‘soft’ surface gives a little and absorbs some of the energy of the ball. (In technical terms it is called an ‘inelastic collision’.) Having less energy, the ball doesn’t bounce as high. LeeH That answer works well for a nice bouncy tennis ball. A very non-bouncy ball, say a lump of clay, will bounce better on some soft surface like a trampoline than on a hard surface like concrete. Some materials, like rubber, are pretty good at returning the energy they pick up when stretched or squashed back into mechanical forms. Others, like clay, are not good at that. You get the most bounce when most of the ‘give’ happens in a material that’s good at returning the energy. If the ball is good at it, then the best bounce happens when does all the squashing, on a hard surface. If the surface is better at it
