Inside the quietest place on the planet where no one has lasted longer than 55 minutes

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By Phoebe Egoroff

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You perhaps wouldn't think it, but one room in Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, has been dubbed 'the quietest place on the planet'.

In fact, no one has lasted longer than 55 minutes in the soundless chamber, and here's why...

Hundraj Gopal, the principal designer of the room - which is also known as an anechoic chamber because it creates no echo at all - explained to CNN why it was so unique.

"As soon as one enters the room, one immediately feels a strange and unique sensation which is hard to describe," Gopal said.

He then added: "Most people find the absence of sound deafening, feel a sense of fullness in the ears, or some ringing. Very faint sounds become clearly audible because the ambient noise is exceptionally low. When you turn your head, you can hear that motion. You can hear yourself breathing and it sounds somewhat loud."

The room is an utterly "novel experience" according to Gopal, who says that the air pressure that our ears are constantly subjected to is completely eliminated in the room.

In terms of the room's creation, Gopal revealed the design, planning, and construction took over a year.

"I needed a good location on campus where the measured noise levels inside the building were adequately low [...] I needed to plan the inside of the building so that I could nest the chamber six levels deep. We had to build a special 12" concrete wall encasing the chamber to block out further ambient sound," he said.

"Careful attention was paid to every detail that could conduct sound from outside to inside the chamber, such as isolating the sprinkler supply pipes and the fire-alarm sensor, or lining the air-supply and return ducts with additional sound absorbing material," he added.

Steven Orfield - who also has an anechoic chamber in Minnesota - told The Daily Mail that it's difficult for people to stand the room for long periods of time simply due to how the body adapts to soundlessness. "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. In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound."

"How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don't have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you're in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair," Orfield added.

He did reveal that the room is often used by various manufacturers to test the noise level of their products. "It's used for formal product testing, for research into the sound of different things - heart valves, the sound of the display of a cellphone, the sound of a switch on a car dashboard."

Orfield stated that the longest time anyone has stayed in his Minnesota chamber for is 45 minutes, while Gopal revealed that Microsoft's reigning record holder withstood the sound of silence for 55 minutes. Well, that certainly gives Simon & Garfunkel's 'Sound of Silence' new meaning!

Featured image credit: Arev Hambardzumyan / Alamy

Inside the quietest place on the planet where no one has lasted longer than 55 minutes

vt-author-image

By Phoebe Egoroff

Article saved!Article saved!

You perhaps wouldn't think it, but one room in Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, has been dubbed 'the quietest place on the planet'.

In fact, no one has lasted longer than 55 minutes in the soundless chamber, and here's why...

Hundraj Gopal, the principal designer of the room - which is also known as an anechoic chamber because it creates no echo at all - explained to CNN why it was so unique.

"As soon as one enters the room, one immediately feels a strange and unique sensation which is hard to describe," Gopal said.

He then added: "Most people find the absence of sound deafening, feel a sense of fullness in the ears, or some ringing. Very faint sounds become clearly audible because the ambient noise is exceptionally low. When you turn your head, you can hear that motion. You can hear yourself breathing and it sounds somewhat loud."

The room is an utterly "novel experience" according to Gopal, who says that the air pressure that our ears are constantly subjected to is completely eliminated in the room.

In terms of the room's creation, Gopal revealed the design, planning, and construction took over a year.

"I needed a good location on campus where the measured noise levels inside the building were adequately low [...] I needed to plan the inside of the building so that I could nest the chamber six levels deep. We had to build a special 12" concrete wall encasing the chamber to block out further ambient sound," he said.

"Careful attention was paid to every detail that could conduct sound from outside to inside the chamber, such as isolating the sprinkler supply pipes and the fire-alarm sensor, or lining the air-supply and return ducts with additional sound absorbing material," he added.

Steven Orfield - who also has an anechoic chamber in Minnesota - told The Daily Mail that it's difficult for people to stand the room for long periods of time simply due to how the body adapts to soundlessness. "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. In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound."

"How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don't have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you're in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair," Orfield added.

He did reveal that the room is often used by various manufacturers to test the noise level of their products. "It's used for formal product testing, for research into the sound of different things - heart valves, the sound of the display of a cellphone, the sound of a switch on a car dashboard."

Orfield stated that the longest time anyone has stayed in his Minnesota chamber for is 45 minutes, while Gopal revealed that Microsoft's reigning record holder withstood the sound of silence for 55 minutes. Well, that certainly gives Simon & Garfunkel's 'Sound of Silence' new meaning!

Featured image credit: Arev Hambardzumyan / Alamy