– if I clap next to a flying gnat it is stunned and falls to the ground, why is that?
In: 11
Sound is a pressure wave, moving through a medium, like an ocean wave moving through water. Sound has a physical impact, and you made a VERY loud sound quite close to an absolutely tiny organism.
If a giant clapped a few cm away from you, it might literally kill you, just rupture eardrums and bowels, collapse lungs and so on. The fact that the gnat is only stunned is really a testament to invertebrate biology.
Super ELI5 version: You basically smacked it with sound.
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