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 ...

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 a behavior so deeply rooted in human beings it’s almost an instinct. You can see babies and toddlers clapping just because everybody else is, and if you’ve ever felt the pressure to be ...

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 ...

Listen to more stories on the Noa app. Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. What is the sound of one hand clapping? You may have ...

Social contagion If you wish to avoid the social faux pas of clapping at the wrong time, listen carefully to the volume of noise around you. That's the conclusion of a study about the social dynamics ...