Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why nothing else? How about congestion?
That's spatial pollution.
And [ugly car du jour] is aesthetic pollution.
A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
71–80 of 99 posts
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#72I don't get why people can't spend more than 45 minutes in there. I understand that you begin to hear your heartbeat and so on, but surely anyone who is even slightly deaf (e.g. even from just prolonged listening to loud music) wouldn't hear these very low-decibel sounds? So it can't be the lack of sound, as a slightly hard of hearing person hears the noise floor drop out quite frequently. (Correct me if I'm wrong he…
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 an isolation tank?
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Big parking spaces just subsidies and encourage car use. (At least that's the line of the UK government, and the reason why they basically require you to have less parking spaces than household units in new residential developments.)
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likewise, I'd like to try this... it seems cool as hell!
Hey all -- I can see if I can arrange something. The chamber is in the basement of the Communication Arts and Sciences building and I teach in the College--but I don't know who currently runs it. Let me send some emails and see what I can do.
I'd be very interested in coming along as well, if at all possible. I'm near Michigan State often, doing UX Design at TechSmith. Feel free to email me at bulletsvshumans@gmail.com .
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#75I've been in the Orfield labs anechoic chamber. I didn't feel too disturbed, but then I never got the chance to be in there alone -- some friends and I went together.
Steve's a great guy. He'll give you a little tour of everything going on at Orfield labs, but the price of admission is a $20 check to a local food-bank.
He told my friends and I a lot of interesting things. Like how corporate offices use subtle noise from the air-ducts to drown out coworkers' conversations; or how casinos use echoing plates to project the sound of a jackpot across the entire gaming floor.
I definitely recommend paying it a visit if you ever find yourself in Minneapolis.
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're not the same things, no, but they obey the same wave mechanics, and due to the difference in propagation velocity, their wavelengths are actually very close. A wavelength of 3 meters is about 100 MHz in the RF world, and 1 kHz in audio terms. That's why an RF anechoic chamber looks a lot like an acoustical anechoic chamber, and often sounds like one too.
A wavelength of 3 meters is about 100 MHz in the RF world, and 1 kHz in audio terms. An acoustic wavelength at STP is around 1ft/30cm, not 3m (which is closer to 100 Hz).
D'oh, you're right; I started punching calculator buttons with 1100 f/s and turned it into meters somehow.
Point stands, though.
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likewise, I'd like to try this... it seems cool as hell!
Hey all -- I can see if I can arrange something. The chamber is in the basement of the Communication Arts and Sciences building and I teach in the College--but I don't know who currently runs it. Let me send some emails and see what I can do.
If you are able to make this happen, it would be very interesting if you could get the visitors to write a short note before entering about what they expect, how well they think they'll handle the disorientation, etc. After they're done have them write a similar note about their experience and how reality matched up with their expectations.
For all of us that don't have access to such facilities, this kind of before/after diary might be very interesting.
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#78Earlier 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 an isolation tank?
In comparison, isolation tanks are extremely noisy.
You got to try an anechoic chamber to believe it. BTW: many universities have one. The one I worked at (BYU, long ago) has this one:
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/acoustics/facilities.asp...
http://vimeo.com/15855229 (a corny advertisement, but shows the room well)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGF_cGS8ts
It's a very good facility. Interestingly, I believe the main anechoic chamber used to be an echo chamber!
Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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Re: A room so quiet, no one can spend more than 45 minutes in it
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does it compare to an isolation tank?
In comparison, isolation tanks are extremely noisy. You got to try an anechoic chamber to believe it. BTW: many universities have one. The one I worked at (BYU, long ago) has this one: http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/acoustics/facilities.asp... http://vimeo.com/15855229 (a corny advertisement, but shows the room well) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGF_cGS8ts It's a very good facility. Interestingly, I believe t…
Thanks!