ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Whispering-gallery wave

Imagine standing on one side of a big, circular room with someone on the opposite side. If you whisper, the person on the other side can hear you very clearly, even though you're far away. This is because the sound waves bounce off the walls and travel all the way around the room. This is kind of like a whispering-gallery wave.

A whispering-gallery wave is a type of wave that travels around a curved surface, like the walls of a circular room. When a sound wave hits a curved surface, it can bounce off the surface and continue to travel around it. This creates a whispering-gallery wave that travels along the curved surface with very little loss of energy.

Whispering-gallery waves can be found in a lot of different places, from acoustic mirrors to satellite antennas. They're also important in microscopy, where they're used to create highly detailed images by bouncing light waves around curved surfaces.

Overall, whispering-gallery waves are pretty cool because they allow sound and light waves to travel long distances around curved surfaces, which can be useful in a lot of different situations.
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