ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Rockwell hardness test

Okay kiddo, so you know how different things can be harder or softer, right? Like a teddy bear is really soft and squishy, while a toy car is harder and more solid. Well, scientists use a tool called the Rockwell hardness test to measure how hard different materials are.

Basically, they take a small piece of the material - say, a piece of metal or plastic - and put it under a special machine. The machine has a little pointy piece called an indenter that they press into the material with a certain amount of force.

Once they've done that, they can look at how deep the indenter went into the material and how much force it took. This tells them how hard the material is. They use a special scale called the Rockwell scale to measure the hardness.

The Rockwell scale goes from 0 to 100, with 0 being really soft (like a teddy bear) and 100 being super hard (like a diamond). Most materials that people use and work with every day fall somewhere in between.

By using the Rockwell hardness test, scientists and engineers can figure out how strong different materials are and how they'll hold up under different conditions. For example, they might use the test to figure out if a certain type of metal is strong enough to use in a building or if a plastic part will be durable enough to use in a toy.

So there you have it, kiddo - the Rockwell hardness test helps people figure out how hard different materials are so they can use them in the best way possible.