Science: Deus et Scientia

Shortly after Evensong one evening last week, a man in an overcoat climbed to the lectern of St. Paul's Cathedral and pointed a pistol toward the great dome. No one made a move to stop him. Two shots, shattering the gloom of the church, made a noise like an artillery barrage booming across nave and transept. For twelve seconds the reverberations echoed.

The man with the pistol was an engineer, demonstrating with blank shells what London churchgoers have known for generations—that St. Paul's acoustics are abominable. Sir Christopher Wren's imposing structure, completed in 1710, has never been right for psalms or sermons....

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