Silver flatware and stainless flatware shouldn’t touch in the dishwasher, according to many sources, but the sources vary on exactly why, what will happen, and which one will be damaged as a result. Anyone have the dope on this?
I don’t have a copy of the oxidation-reduction potentials here at home so I cannot answer definitively but what happens in the dishwasher is that a small electrolytic cell is created between the metals when water (or water molecules to be more exact) get between the two utensils to effectively close the circuit on the electrolytic cell and the metal that has the higher potential will replace the metal with lower potential (I hope that this right as it has been a long time time since I actually had to apply this stuff).
The rest of you with more exact info can fill in the blanks (sorry for being too lazy to look it up).
What happens is Galvanic corrosion.