Are binaural beats real?

well, some people claim that if you put sound of different frequencies in someones ear, the brainwaves will synchronise to the diffference in frequency . for example if sound in ear one is 1600 Hz, and in ear two is 1620, the brain will sync to 20 Hz (btw, i did not take into account the audio range of hearing when i made my examples). I smell BS. However, there are some people with Phd's such as Jeffrey Thompson who seem to spend a large amount of time on this.