⁠⁠The Earths Quietest Room It’ll Drive You Crazy: No one can stay in this room more than an hour

This room holds the Guinness World Record for the "World's Quietest Place." Dubbed as the auditory void, this chamber is so silent it can drive you to the edge of your sanity!

In 2015, Microsoft built what is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as the quietest place on the planet, the NY Post reports.

Known as the anechoic chamber at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, “ultra-sensitive tests” performed in 2015 gave an average background noise reading of -20.35 dBA (decibels A-weighted — a measurement of the sound pressure level).

Only a few people have been able to stay in the room for more than an hour.

After just a few minutes, you’ll start to hear your own heartbeat. Shortly after that, you’ll hear your bones grinding and blood flowing.

The anechoic chamber’s purpose isn’t to make you hear nothing, but to eliminate all external noise, allowing you to hear the constant sounds of your own body.

Only in death is the body truly silent.

Places we consider extremely quiet are usually louder than the human hearing threshold, which is around 0 decibels.

For example, a library reading room might register around 40 decibels.

Without any external noise, the complete silence in the chamber will gradually turn into an unbearable ringing in your ears.

This environment can make you lose your balance because there’s no echo to help with spatial awareness.

“When you turn your head, you can actually hear the movement,” said Hundraj Gopal, the principal designer of Microsoft’s anechoic chamber. “You can hear yourself breathing, and it sounds quite loud.”

He explained, “The quietest sound you can measure is around -23 dBA, which is just the noise from moving air particles. We’re pushing the limits of what’s physically possible.”

The term “anechoic” means “without echo.” Designing the chamber took two years.

It’s built with six layers of concrete and steel, making it somewhat isolated from the surrounding building. The floor is supported by vibration-damping springs, and fibreglass wedges on the walls, ceiling, and floor break up sound waves before they can bounce around.

Another anechoic chamber is competing for the title of the quietest room in the world.

Located at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, this room recorded a noise level of “-24.9 dBA,” as measured by its designer, Steven J. Orfield. It previously held the record for the quietest room.

Mr. Orfield told The New York Times that he has applied to have his chamber officially recognized as the quietest room again. He is now waiting for a response from Guinness World Records.

A Guinness representative confirmed they received Mr. Orfield’s application and are currently reviewing his evidence and testing methods.

Inside the quietest room in the world

In the outside world, we’re always surrounded by some level of noise. But in the chamber, there’s no air pressure on the eardrums because there’s no echo.

Hundraj Gopal, who designed the chamber at Microsoft, told CNN: “Most people find the silence overwhelming. They might feel fullness in their ears or hear a ringing. Very faint sounds become clear because the ambient noise is so low.

“When you turn your head, you can hear that movement. You can hear your own breathing, and it sounds loud.”

Gopal explains that the chamber’s background noise is as close as you can get to ‘absolute zero of sound’ without being in a vacuum.

The chamber is supported by vibration-damping springs and surrounded by six layers of concrete and steel to block out outside noise. Fiberglass wedges on the floor, ceiling, and walls break up sound waves before they can bounce back into the room.

Inside, the noise level measures negative decibels – specifically, -20.3 dB, which is 20.3 decibels below the human hearing threshold. For comparison, calm breathing is about 10 dB in a normal room, and a soft whisper is around 30 dB.

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