Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Making Your Room Quiet

Posted by Hemos on from the ssshh-SHUT-UP dept.

el_flynn writes "This may be a cure for those of you with loud computers, or perhaps those who spend lots of time in NOC rooms that generate lots of noise: NewScientist.com mentions about a "Silence Machine" that gets rid of unwanted noise. I want one to quiet down my neighbour's loud dogs. " These are also being tested in cars, to make the car quieter. I've got a pair of the headphones that the article alludes to - they make airplane travel much nicer, and having something like this to cancel machine noise would be excellent.

2 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. talk about old technology.. by Tairan · · Score: 1, Redundant
    Everyone knows that sound is a wave. If you output the opposite negative waveform of a sound, the noise is cancelled out. It's the same with light. This has been demonstrated for the last 200 years. High school physics, people. Also, there have been devices to do this for years. Cosco has them installed near their refrigerators. However, they only work well when the noise is a constant humm - a noisy crowd would still be noisy, however a fan blade will be a bit quieter. Granted, interesting story, however old, antiquated boring technology.

    --
    /. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
  2. Old News by lxmeister · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'm sure this was on Tomorrows World in the UK years ago.