Silence is golden, unless you find yourself in the quietest room in the world.
In 2015, Microsoft built what it is now Guinness Book of Records as the quietest place on the planet.
Known as the anechoic chamber at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, “ultra-sensitive tests” conducted in 2015 showed an average background noise reading of -20.35 dBA (A-weighted decibels – a measure of sound pressure level).
Only very few people managed to withstand a long stay in a room – maximum hour.
After a few minutes, you will begin to hear your own heartbeat. A few minutes after that, you can hear your own bones cracking and blood flowing.
The point of an anechoic chamber is not that you won’t hear anything, but that it will cut out all other external noise and allow you to hear the endless sounds of your own body.
Only in death is the body completely silent.
The environment we consider ultra-quiet is usually louder than the human hearing threshold, which is around 0 decibels.
For example, in the reading room of a library, there may be about 40 decibels.
Without sound from the outside world, complete and absolute silence will gradually turn into an unbearable ringing in the ears.
This will likely cause you to lose balance due to the lack of reverberation in the room, which impairs your spatial perception.
“When you turn your head, you can even hear this movement. You can hear your own breathing and it sounds a little loud.” Khundraj Gopal, chief camera designer at Microsoft, previously said.
The word anechoic means “no echo”. It took two years to design the space.
Composed of six layers of concrete and steel, it is slightly separated from the surrounding building. At the bottom are springs that dampen vibration. Inside, there are fiberglass wedges on the floor, ceiling, and walls that break up sound waves before they can make their way back into the room.
Meanwhile, another anechoic chamber is looking to earn the new title of the world’s quietest room.
According to Stephen J. Orfield, who designed the room, the room, located in Orfield’s laboratory in Minneapolis, achieved “legitimate measurements” of -24.9 dBA. Previously, he held the record.
Orfield told the New York Times that he has applied to his chamber to regain her title and is currently awaiting a response from Guinness World Records.
A Guinness spokesperson confirmed receipt of Orfield’s newest submission to the publication, adding that the Guinness Records Management team is in the process of “evaluating both his evidence and the criteria for testing it.”
Credit: nypost.com /