Why is a bouncy ball so bouncy?

How to turn a rubber bouncy ball into a NON-BOUNCY ball?

• Rubber bouncy balls are the perfect size and weight to juggle with but they keep bouncing away when I drop them. What can I do to them to stop them from being so bouncy? Any ideas?

• Answer:

  If you want a completely impractical answer, cool them below their glass transition temperature, by, for example, dipping them in liquid nitrogen. Then when you drop them, they won't bounce away. They'll shatter instead. More practically, I don't think the shell will work. Hard things bounce and roll, too. You may be better off doing something about the surface you juggle on. How about juggling in a sandbox or on the beach? **************** Edit: Your hard plastic ball would bounce if it weren't half-filled with salt, though, right? Essentially, you've put a little "beach" inside it, which dissipates the ball's kinetic energy as thermal energy, instead of storing it as elastic potential energy and returning it with a bounce. Have you seen the "happy and unhappy balls"? You might be able to work them into some kind of humorous performance.