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 ...

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 ...

Modern American ballparks are surrounded by all the trappings of the fan experience: loud music, fried foods and cold beers, T-shirt guns, mascots dancing while the crowd sings about Cracker Jacks—and ...

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 ...

WERTHEIMER: But what makes us clap more for some performances than others? You'd think it's obvious: the better the show, the more applause. Think again. New research at Uppsala University in Sweden ...

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 ...