Acoustical mystery of Greek theater of Epidaurus solved
ATLANTA -- U.S. scientists have discovered ancient Greeks unwittingly created a sophisticated acoustic filter while building a fourth century B.C. theater at Epidaurus.
Despite many attempts to replicate the Epidaurus theater's design, the Greeks never achieved the same acoustic effect that allowed people in the back rows to hear music and voices with amazing clarity.
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have...discovered it's not the slope or the wind -- it's the seats.
The rows of limestone seats at Epidaurus form an efficient acoustics filter that hushes low-frequency background noises, such as the murmur of a crowd, and reflects the high-frequency noises of the performers off the seats and back toward the seated audience -- thereby carrying an actor's voice all the way to the back rows of the theater.
The research by acoustician and ultrasonics expert Nico Declercq, a Georgia Tech assistant professor, and engineer Cindy Dekeyser appears in the April issue of the Journal of the Acoustics Society of America.
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Despite many attempts to replicate the Epidaurus theater's design, the Greeks never achieved the same acoustic effect that allowed people in the back rows to hear music and voices with amazing clarity.
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have...discovered it's not the slope or the wind -- it's the seats.
The rows of limestone seats at Epidaurus form an efficient acoustics filter that hushes low-frequency background noises, such as the murmur of a crowd, and reflects the high-frequency noises of the performers off the seats and back toward the seated audience -- thereby carrying an actor's voice all the way to the back rows of the theater.
The research by acoustician and ultrasonics expert Nico Declercq, a Georgia Tech assistant professor, and engineer Cindy Dekeyser appears in the April issue of the Journal of the Acoustics Society of America.