A round of applause, please: Scientists have finally figured out what’s behind the sound of clapping. The research pinpoints a mechanism called a Helmholtz resonator — the same acoustic concept that ...

Hand clapping is ubiquitous behavior for humans across time and cultures, serving many different purposes: to signify approval with applause, for instance, or to keep time to music. Acousticians often ...

In a pivotal scene from the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, a mutant claps his hands and blasts a shockwave across a battlefield. In a theater somewhere, Sunny Jung watched—and wondered. “It made me ...

It might be hard to imagine yourself in ancient Rome, but if you were dropped into the audience of a play 2000 years ago, you’d probably know what to do when it finished – start clapping. Making a ...

Here’s the deal. Make your way to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, by Tuesday at 2.15 p.m. By Friday, in a nearby village, you must turn two dilapidated buildings into teachers’ housing and build a ...

Scientists have finally unravelled the complex process that generates sound during handclaps, a discovery that shows how even simple acts can be rich with physics. The key to generating sound from ...

Clapping is both a scientific event and a social gesture. A study explores the complex physics behind the sound of clapping. The noise originates from compressed air, not just hand collisions.