Last night my cousin and I were stuck in Grand Central Station waiting for our 1:08 AM train to leave. To pass the time we wandered around and noticed two people standing in opposite corners of the room pictured here, which is right next to the Grand Central Station oyster bar.
They were facing the corners as if they were being punished, and were whispering to the wall. I guessed that perhaps the acoustics of the room allowed them to hear each other, although I sort of suspected we were being had.
Being one who is always up for a fun experiment, my cousin and I put ourselves in the same place as the two we had seen and began talking to the wall.
I was absolutely astonished. You can hear even a soft spoken person as if they are right beside you. If you are ever in Grand Central and have five minutes, I highly recommend this. We were lucky that almost all of Grand Central is empty at 1 AM, but I would be curious to find out if it works during normal hours.
I’m pretty certain that this has to do with the vaulted ceiling and stone materials in the room, reflecting the sound waves back into the opposite corner, but if anyone has a more technical explanation, do post.
There’s another weird acoustic effect at the Bicentennial Mall State Park in Nashville, TN. In the court pictured on the Wikipedia page, you can stand in the center and hear your voice echoed off the columns, but some one standing at any other location can’t hear the echo. The park, BTW, is beautiful, with lots of cool historircal tidbits and massive stone maps of the state. If you’re into that kind of thing (which I am).
The last time (many years ago) I was the Exploratorium in San Francisco, they had two large parabolas cast in concrete spaced about 40 feet apart with the concave sides facing each other. Persons whispering at one parabola would be heard at the other one.
Thank you for using my image (I’m glad you liked it!). And thank you very much for attributing it properly and linking back to my site. I have absolutely no objection to you using any image on my site in that way. Thanks again!
The rotunda in the Cincinnati Union Terminal has the same feature. I think there’s such a whisper gallery in the US Capitol, too, but can’t be bothered to confirm it.
There’s one of these in the US Capitol.
i was there yesterday , & it was so funny.. some random stranger & there friends went to the opposite side of me, so i said “hello my children” they were really shocked to hear a tlking wall.. till one of their friends pointed out that it was rlly me. c:
I like the online world. Because of the dedication of people like you on the network, so that we can find ourselves in need of information and fun! Thanks!