What Are the Acoustic Wonders of the World?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-are-acoustic-wonders-world-180950043/?no-ist

By Joseph Stromberg
smithsonianmag.com
March 17, 2014

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Eventually, this line of thought led him to take up a new mission: finding the sonic wonders of the world. He set up a website and began his research, traveling to ancient mausoleums with strange acoustics, icebergs that creak and groan naturally and a custom-built organ called the Stalacpipe that harnesses the reverberations of stalactites in a Virginia cave. His new book, The Sound Book, catalogs his journeys to these locales. "They're places that you want to visit not for the more typical reason, that they've got beautiful views, but because they've got beautiful sounds," he says

Some of the acoustic destinations were relatively obvious. On example is the well-known St. Paul's Cathedral's whispering gallery, so called because a speaker standing against the gallery wall can whisper and be heard by someone standing against the wall on the opposite side of the room. This occurs because the walls of the room are perfectly cylindrical, so sound waves directed at the proper angle can bounce form one side to another without losing much volume.

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One of Cox's biggest takeaways from the project, though, is that acoustic tourism can be done virtually anywhere. Even in his hometown of Salford, near the city of Manchester, there are interesting sounds worth listening.

"As I wrote the book, I became more and more aware of interesting sounds during the everyday," he says, "and I now find myself listening more and more as I walk around. At the moment, spring is on its way, so I hear the animals coming alive. Even above the rumble of the traffic, I notice bird song coming back after a long winter."