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 ...

ITHACA, N.Y. — Every time you applaud at a concert or celebrate a touchdown, your hands are performing a feat of physics that scientists have puzzled over for decades. Cornell University researchers ...

Researchers deserve a round of applause for uncovering the science behind the acoustics produced from hand clapping that had not been clearly understood until recently. The daily gesture that people ...

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 ...

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 ...