The sound is heard because ocean movements are similar to airflow. The seashell captures the noise around you and makes it resonate inside it. The resonance is made possible by the shell’s hard inner walls which are curved on which the noise bounces off. The resonance, in turn, produces the ocean sound. This is called seashell resonance.
The “ocean” sounds will be the same, not louder. It is also not merely air flowing through the shell, creating a wooshing noise similar to the sound of the ocean. Some compare the sound you hear in the seashell to that you get when you blow in a glass soda bottle, but that’s not what is happening.
As lovely as that concept might be, though, it’s only a metaphor: When you listen to a shell, you’re not really hearing the sound of the ocean. The shape of seashells just happens to make them great amplifiers of ambient noise. Any air that makes its way into a shell’s cavity gets bounced around by its hard,.
After all, if you happen to be at the beach when you put a shell to your ear, the ambient sounds you hear will include at least some ocean noise.
Another explanation was given that the ocean sound is caused by air that flows through the shell. When you place the shell a little further from your ear, the sound increases than when the shell is tightly pressed against your ear.
While researching we ran into the question “Can you hear the ocean in a seashell?”.
The ocean can’t possibly be inside the shell, so the sounds of the ocean coming from the pink walls of a seashell seem like magic. So what are you actually hearing in the shell? The answer is that you are hearing the local noises already around you, but altered by the shell — thanks to some clever physics.
The ocean sound you hear is actually is made by the noise that is present in the environment around you thanks to physics. This noise, in turn, resonates with the shell’s cavity.
How does a shell change the sound of sound?
Noise from outside the shell also can change the intensity of the sound you hear inside the shell. You can look at the shell as a resonating chamber. When sound from outside enters the shell, it bounces around, thus creating an audible noise.
Why does the inside of a shell make noise?
Others say that the whooshing sound inside the shell is generated by air flowing through the shell – air flowing through the shell and out creates a noise. You’ll notice that the sound is louder when you lift the shell slightly away from your ear than it is when the shell is right against your head.
Why are seashells so noisy?
The shape of seashells just happens to make them great amplifiers of ambient noise. Any air that makes its way into a shell’s cavity gets bounced around by its hard, curved inner surfaces. The resonating air produces sound.
What does it mean to hold a seashell up to your ear?
Hold this to your ear for the sound of the ocean. When you hold a seashell up to your ear, you hear the quiet roar of waves crashing on a distant beach, as if sounds from the shell’s past environment are still echoing within it.