Whispering gallery

A whispering gallery is a gallery beneath a dome, vault, or enclosed in a circular or elliptical area in which whispers can be heard clearly in other parts of the building.

A whispering gallery is usually constructed in the form of an ellipsoid, with an accessible point at each focus. When a visitor stands at one focus and whispers, the line of sound emanating from this focus reflects directly to the dish/focus at the other end of the room, and to the other person. Circular whispering galleries may provide "communication" from any part on the circumference to the diametrically opposite point on the circumference.

Contents 1 Examples 1.1 United States 1.2 United Kingdom 1.3 Rest of the world 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

Examples

United States

• Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol is a famous example of a whispering gallery.
• The Mapparium in the Christian Science complex in Boston allows visitors to enter the interior of reflecting surface forming nearly complete sphere, with very striking effects.
• Curved stone benches on either side of the Smith Memorial Arch in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA.
• Gates Circle along Delaware Ave., Buffalo, New York. Exterior circular concrete benches in sectors.
• Centennial fountain in front of Green Library at Stanford University in California
• The rotunda at San Francisco's city hall.
• Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal.
• Grand Central Terminal in New York City — the gallery in front of the Oyster Bar restaurant.
• The rotundas of the Texas Capitol and the Missouri State Capitol.
• A whispering gallery can be found on the main floor of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
• St. Louis Union Station Marriott^[1]

United Kingdom

• The library of Dollar Academy in Scotland
• The entrance gallery for the Aston Webb great hall at the University of Birmingham.
• St Paul's Cathedral in London. ^[2]
• The Berkeley Pub on Queens Road in Bristol.

Rest of the world

• The Whispering Wall. Barossa Reservoir. Williamstown, South Australia.
• Cathedral of Brasília in Brazil.
• Martello towers
• The Echo Wall in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China.
• The Fazer cafeteria in Helsinki.
• The Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, Karnataka State, India.
• Masjed-e Imam in Esfahān, Iran
• Basilica of St. John Lateran, in Rome, Italy.
• Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence Cathedral, in Florence, Italy.
• The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
• Leaning Tower of Nevyansk in Sverdlovsk oblast.
• Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Turkey.
• St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.
• Monument to the Negev Brigade in Beersheba, Israel.
• The Treasury of Atreus, Greece^[3]
• Secret's Chamber in El Escorial in Madrid, Spain.
• The Wispering Gallery in Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
• Cleopatra's Bath in the Siwa Oasis, Egypt

Whispering galleries also occur naturally in the ocean. Instead of the reflecting surface it is the sound rays that are curved and the reflecting 'wall' (the sea surface) is flat.^[4] The same phenomenon occurs for radio waves propagating in the atmosphere.^[5]

Many research institutions now do research on optical whispering galleries, which range in size from several micrometers to millimeters in diameter .

See also

• St Paul's Cathedral
• Underwater acoustics
• Sofar channel
• Room acoustics

References

1. ^ http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/26573
2. ^ A. E. Bate, Note on the whispering gallery of St Paul's Cathedral, London. Proceedings of the Physical Society, 50:293–297, 1938.
3. ^ http://www.greeka.com/peloponnese/mycenae/mycenae-archaeological-site/atreus-treasury.htm
4. ^ D. E. Weston, Guided acoustic waves in the ocean. Reports on Progress in Physics, 42:347–387, 1979.
5. ^ K. G. Budden & H. G. Martin, The Ionosphere as a Whispering Gallery. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 265(No. 1323):554–569, 1962.

External links

• Whispering Gallery Modes information from the University of Bristol, UK.
• Whispering Gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois USA.
• Grand Central Station and St Paul's Cathedral: visiting information, videos and sounds of whispering galleries