- Frans A Bilsen: fabilsen@xs4all.nl
Standing at the foot of the Mayan step pyramid at Chichen Itza in Mexico, one can produce a pitchy "chirp" echo by handclapping. As exposed by Declercq et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 3328-3335 (2004)], an acoustic model based on optical Bragg diffraction at a periodic structure cannot explain satisfactorily the chirp-echo sonogram. Alternatively, considering the echo as a sequence of reflections, and given the dimensions of the pyramid and source-receiver position, the chirp is predicted correctly as a Repetition Pitch glide of which the pitch height is continuously decreasing within 177 ms from 796 to 471 Hz-equivalent.