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 ...

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 ...

This post is co-authored by Ron Riggio and nonverbal communication expert Alan Crawley. When and why do we clap? We get startled, and we clap. We try to get our dog’s (or our child’s) attention, and ...

Prof Emi Hasuo studies how the brain perceives and processes sound rhythm. Surprisingly, the physical rhythm and perceived rhythm are sometimes different. Moreover, sounds of the same rhythm are ...

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 ...

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 ...