Why does snapping only make sound when you come in contact with your hand and why does it require the finger to slide off the thumb onto your palm for it to make sound? Why does quickly slapping your palm with your finger not make the same snapping sound?
In: Physics
You’re just sort of building up tension in your finger when you press it to your thumb that you release all at once. You put a bunch of force into your finger when you try to push it into your thumb. Once you move your thumb all that force you’re applying just keeps on going until your finger hits your palm.
Think of it sort of like a rubber band. I can grab it at one end and try swinging it into you as much as I want, but it’s not really gonna hurt. But if I hold it against you, pull it back until it’s nice and stretched out, and then let it snap back into you it much more efficiently releases all of the energy built up by stretching it right into you at once and stings pretty bad.
It’s basically the same concept. If you try just moving your finger directly there’s not as much force behind it and it’s not as directly focused on just moving forward into your palm. Using your fingers to hit your other hand also isn’t as good for the same reason, the force isn’t as direct and your fingers will normally bend back to reduce the force of the impact. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but not nearly as easily as regular snapping.
The snap sound is generated by the finger hitting the palm at high speed. The reason why it requires the thumb and why just slapping a finger on to the palm makes a different sound is speed. The potential energy, the energy that is stored and not active yet, is higher with the thumb holding the finger back until you release it, making it kinetic, or active, energy. It makes your finger move faster than just slapping it against your palm, generating the snap sound. If you used one finger on one hand to hit the palm of the other hand, you could make the same sound as snapping.
If you are like me, you also hold down the finger below your snapping finger, which creates an echoing chamber of sorts, which amplifies the volume and slightly changes the sound of the snap.
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