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 underlies the sound made when you blow across the top of an empty bottle. Experiments using baby powder to map the flow of air, alongside pressure measurements and high-speed video, confirm that explanation, researchers report in a paper accepted in Physical Review Research.
A Helmholtz resonator consists of an enclosed cavity of air — like the inside of a glass bottle, or the space between clapping hands — with an opening connected to the cavity by a neck. Air vibrates