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Tin cry

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A tin cry is the characteristic sound heard when a bar of tin is bent. Variously described as a "screaming" or "crackling" sound, the effect is caused by the crystal twinning in the metal. The sound is not particularly loud, despite terms like "crying" and "screaming".

The tin cry is often demonstrated as a simple science experiment. The bar of tin will "cry" repeatedly when bent until it breaks. The experiment can then be recycled by melting and recrystallizing the metal. The low melting point of tin (only 232 °C, or about 500 K) makes re-casting easy. Tin anneals at reasonably-low temperature as well, normalizing tin's microstructure of crystallites/grains.

Although the cry is most typical of tin, a similar effect occurs in other metals, such as niobium, indium, zinc, cadmium, gallium, and mercury.