A whispering gallery is usually a circular, hemispherical, elliptical or ellipsoidal enclosure, often beneath a dome or a vault, in which whispers can be heard clearly in other parts of the gallery. Such galleries can also be set up using two parabolic dishes. Sometimes the phenomenon is detected in caves.
Today the structures with these properties are famous as destinations to experience the phenomenon. They include the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, the U.S. Capital Building in Washington, the Whispering Arch in Gorlitz, Germany. Here's the description for St. Paul's Cathedral and Grand Central Station:
St. Paul's Cathedral in London is considered one of the most famous whispering galleries. The architect was Christopher Wren, and it is said he didn't design the balcony for its acoustic properties. In the late 1870s, the British Physicist Lord Rayleigh experiments proved the existence of 'whispering gallery waves' that travel along a curvilinear path.
Grand Central Station in New York City has a herringbone-tiled roof arching outside the Grand Central Oyster Bar that has a whispering gallery. Rather than transmitting the whispers horizontally, sounds waves shoot up one of the four corners, along the arched surface of the ceiling, and back down the pillar on the opposite side. Travelers passing through Grand Central will know they’ve found the right spot when they see what looks like tourists talking to themselves in the corners.
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