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Why world's most silent room is scary
Agencies
April 04, 2012
First Published: 17:22 IST(4/4/2012)
Last Updated: 18:12 IST(4/4/2012)
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One can't sit for more than 45 minutes in the chamber.
World's most silent room ‘anechoic chamber’ at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis, United States becomes unbearable after a short time. The Guiness World Record holder place could not be tolerated for more than 45 minutes. According to Mail Online, the room is 99.99 per cent sound
absorbent and it achieves its ultra-quietness by virtue of 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges, double walls of insulated steel and foot-thick concrete.

"We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark - one reporter stayed in there for 45 minutes", said company’s founder and president, Steven Orfield.

Orfield also explained that the room is so silent that whoever goes becomes the sound of the area. "When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You'll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly", he adds.

silent

It is also said that when one is in the chamber, one has to sit in the chair, reports MailOnline.

The chamber is used by companies all over America – including Nasa, which puts their astronauts to the test in there, floating in a water-filled container, to see how long it takes before hallucinations take place and whether they could work through it. It is also used by a multitude of manufacturers, to test how loud their products are.

Orfield told Mail Online that he can last for good 30 minutes in the chamber, despite having an off-putting mechanical heart valve that suddenly becomes very loud once he's inside.


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