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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Scientists have developed an app to understand why some rhythms are more difficult to perform than others. Scientists at Queen Mary University of London have developed an app to understand why some ...

Justin Bieber recently took it upon himself to address a bad clapping situation. As the Biebs sang “What Do You Mean?” on the Spanish TV show El Hormiguero in MTV Unplugged style, sitting on a stool ...

Let’s have a round of applause for Fitz and the Tantrums. With “HandClap,” the bouncy first single from the group’s new self-titled album, they really find their groove as they take clapping to the ...