Interesting Sound, Ears, & Hearing: What's Really Going On?  

The physical phenomenon of sound is a vibration of molecules as a mechanical wave through a medium, like air or water. Sounds are created when objects vibrate enough to cause these waves at a frequency your ear can detect, such as beating a drum or strumming a guitar string. The characteristics of the sound - whether it is uniform or distorted - depend on the oscillation of particles in the medium. 

The weirdly shaped fleshy outside part of the ear is called the auricle, or the pinna as it's commonly known with mammals. Because of its asymmetry, the auricle allows us detect the origin of sounds vertically, so we can tell if it's coming from above or below us.

In the middle ear, which unsurprisingly lies between the outer ear and the inner ear, are the ossicles - three tiny bones that vibrate to transfer sound from the eardrum to the cochlea. They are called the malleus, the incus, and the stapes, which are Latin for the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup, respectively.

If you've ever heard a recording of your voice and had trouble believing it was you, there's actually a scientific reason for it. It's because of bone conduction, which is the conduction of sound through the skull to the inner ear. Because the skull conducts lower frequencies of sound better than air, your own voice tends to sound deeper and fuller to you than to other people. In other words, "It's not you, it's me!"