Re: How are whispering galleries related to ellipses?

Yes, whispering galleries are indeed very closely related to ellipses. One way to see the connection is to draw an ellipse the old-fashioned way, using a pair of pins, a loop of string, and a pencil. Look up this technique in any basic geometry book, or look at the following URLs:

http://www.bu.edu/satellite/classroom/lesson05-2.html

http://new.math.uiuc.edu/eggmath/Shape/pins.html

How is this connected to whispering galleries? As you draw an ellipse, pretend that one person stands at the position of one pin, the other person stands at the position of the other pin, and the walls of the gallery are built in the shape of the ellipse.

Want more information? Go to google.com and type "whispering gallery ellipse sound" into the search box, then hit return. Look at the second returned URL, the one titled "Science 122 Program 11 Kepler's Laws". You might also make a search on "whispering gallery St Paul Cathedral", because St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, has a very famous whispering gallery.