A Recording Engineering Approach To Zen

A pair of identical waveforms at the same phase will, when added together, result in a waveform equal to one of the identical pair amplified by three decibels. As such, if we assume a complex waveform to be the sum of two identical waveforms at the same phase, we can reconstruct one (both) of the original waveforms by simply attenuating the resultant waveform by 3 dB.

The simplicity of this calculation reduces the problem of constructing the sound of one hand clapping to a surprisingly tractable state: if we assume the sound of two hands clapping to be the sum of the sounds of two individual hands clapping (initiated simultaneously), we can solve the kōan by simply attenuating the sound of two hands clapping by 3 dB.

Although some reviewers may question the validity of our base assumption, objections are easily dispensed with: no theoretical framework supporting the non-simultaneous report of individual hands involved in a clap has yet been proposed, and Beau Brosworth's exhaustive high-five experiments (Brosworth, 1987) conclusively demonstrated that, after correcting for strike accuracy and force, homogeneous pairs of dextral and sinistral hands produce identical clap waveforms within a 0.0034% margin of error.