I was a kid many many years ago. Christmas tree ornaments seem to be made of the same material that they were then - a shiny, metalic material that shatters like glass, but doesn’t sound like it. What is that stuff? How do they make ornaments?
It’s glass. It’s just thin enough that they don’t really use it for anything else, because it breaks so easily, so when it does break, it sounds like nothing else breaking except, well, glass ornaments. Compare the thickness to that of a lightbulb, for example.
Oh, and lightbulbs? They’ve got that vaccum action thing going, so there’s an implosive “pop” sound when they break which masks the relatively similar sound of the glass breaking.
I thought light bulbs were filled with some inert gas, like argon or something.
I’ve found that many ornaments were, indeed, glass, but that Corning found a way to silver the inside. That’s probably what made the metalic sound. It’s just amazing that after all these years, they’re made the same. (Yes, light bulbs have inert gases in them to keep the filament from burning out - often argon)