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A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

timesherald.com

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Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#61

Post by lostlogin »

jsiarto wrote: post #34
dzuc wrote: post #31

Well apparently one can hear one's own circulatory and nervous system: http://theresonator.blogspot.com/2007/04/john-cage-visits-an... > Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he "heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."

I can attest to this. We have an anechoic chamber here at Michigan State and I've also been in the testing chamber at EV (Electro-Voice). Hearing the blood in your head and ears is quite odd, but the disorientation from not being able to place yourself in space is even stranger.

If you have heart issues and you have a period with no heart beat, even just seconds, the feeling of sudden silence is striking. I think it's likely that people just aren't aware that they can hear their heart beat all the time. It might just be me though, but I suspect not as I mentioned how quiet everything went to a cardiologist who didn't seem surprised.

Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#62

Post by nodrama »

eru wrote: post #22
nodrama wrote: post #10

yes, noise is pollution. I would tax cars based on air and noise pollution and nothing else.

Why nothing else? How about congestion?

I would tax buildings-activities for congestion. If you rent a building for residential use: no tax. If you rent it to be used as a Shopping Center: big tax. If on top of that, they don't have a big parking space: huge tax.

Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#65

Post by azelfrath »

mistercow wrote: post #13
coreygoodie wrote: post #7

Being completely deaf in one ear, I'm sure I could last 90 minutest at least. A cool article, but a bit sensationalist.

I like that your process for calculating how long you could last appears to consist of multiplying the amount of time others can last by their ratio of working ears to yours. Science!

As I read his comment I was going to write basically what you did, but I thought "No. No, that is too nerdy." So thank you =D

Relevant: I do wonder though if the disorientation would be less for someone with complete deafness in one ear. I would think that they are already somewhat used to the balance/orientation issues.

Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#66

Post by raverbashing »

terangdom wrote: post #55
SeanLuke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot speak to partial deafness, but I used to work in an anechoic chamber. It is indeed soul-suckingly disturbing after short periods of time. Even a totally "silent" environment has tremendous amounts of reverb and low-level reflected noise: you just filter it out automatically. In an anechoic chamber, this noise is gone, and your filter goes haywire. It starts filtering things that aren't there. You start heari…

How does it compare to using earplugs in a silent room?

I must assume it's quite different

Even though some of the sound travels through the facial bone structure (like when you hear your own voice) I guess most sounds come from outside

Also, earplugs add pressure to the ear canal so I guess this muffles somethings

Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#67

Post by rokhayakebe »

dsirijus wrote: post #52
rokhayakebe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a room this quiet I assume using keyboard will sound very loud.

Quite the opposite - hence, 'quiet room'.

How do you hear your heartbeat if you can cannot hear your keyboard keys when pressed?

Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it

#68

Post by toemetoch »

Stwerp wrote: post #29
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't they be the same thing, just "tuned" to block out different frequency ranges? I'm guessing the tuning is based on the material and shape of the foam, and thickness and material of the walls? It's all waves.

They are different physical phenomena. Sound is a pressure and is produced by compression and expansion of the (local) environment. RF or light is a self-sustaining electromagnetic wave (assuming we are not right next to the source [i.e. far-field]) produced by a time-variant electric field inducing a time-varying magnetic field, which induces a time-varying electric field, which induces ... All these induced fields…

... and audio waves can be well into the ultrasonic range and into the UHF regime.

Theoretically, at sea level on earth, the mean free path of air molecules allows for 3.4 GHz. But attenuation is proportional to f^2 which results in an upper limit of 100MHz. You need a medium denser than air at sea level for higher frequencies.

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