It all depends upon the hanging-on ability. Sometimes in undergoing different processes an article which will ordinarily only bend will become very brittle or breakable. A steel wire may bend but if you make a steel wire very hard it becomes brittle. On the other hand, glass is very brittle ordinarily, but if you make it very hot, you can bend it into any shape you wish, and thus the glass-worker makes different shapes to various dishes; lamp chimneys, bottles, etc., by heating glass and then bending it. When it becomes cool again, it also becomes brittle or breakable as before. Why Does a Ball Bounce? When you throw a ball against the floor in order to make it bounce the ball gets out of shape as soon as it comes in contact with the floor. As much of it as strikes the floor becomes perfectly flat, and because the ball has a quality known as elasticity, which means the ability to return to its proper shape, it returns to its shape immediately and in doing so forces itself back into the air and that is the bounce. Of course, the first thing we think of when we consider something that bounces is a ball, and in most cases a rubber ball. We are more familiar with the bouncing qualities of a rubber ball. Other balls, like standard baseballs, are not so elastic as a rubber ball filled with air, but a solid-rubber ball is more elastic and some golf balls are much more elastic than a solid-rubber ball. The principle is the same, when you drive a golf ball, excepting that when you bounce a ball on the floor the floor does the flattening and when you drive a golf ball, the golf club does the flattening. A baseball flies away from the bat for the same reason. When you meet a fast-pitched ball squarely on the nose with a good swing, it goes farther and faster than when you hit a slow-pitched ball with an equal swing, because in the case of the fast-pitched ball you flatten the ball out more, and it has so much more to do to recover its proper shape that it bounces away from the bat at much greater speed and goes much further unless caught than a slow-pitched ball under the same circumstances. What Makes a Ball Stop Bouncing? A bouncing ball, when you first throw it against the wall bounces back at you about as fast as you throw it, but if you do not catch it on the rebound, it goes to the floor again, because the law of gravitation which is the pulling power of the earth, pulls it down again. When it strikes the floor it is again flattened to a certain extent and bounces up again, but does not come back so high. It goes on striking the floor and bouncing back into the air again each time a shorter distance, until the force of gravity has actually overcome its tendency to bounce back. When you bounce a ball on the floor and it bounces up again, the motion of the ball through the air is affected by the friction that the contact with the air produces and this friction of the air overcomes part of the bouncing ability in the ball also.