Kind: captions
Language: en
i'm going to scream as loud as i can and
i'm going to keep screaming as loud as i
can while i spin around
i'll keep going until my breath runs out
great you ready
yeah okay
that was outstanding thank you thank you
the quietest place on earth is
apparently an anechoic chamber in
minneapolis
now i'm here at byu at their anechoic
chamber anechoic is latin it basically
means
no echo and the way they achieve no echo
is through all of these
foam wedges which are put on the walls
and even the floor
you can see that i'm actually on a
spring floor and down
below me there are all of these wedges
now you may want to use headphones while
you're listening to this video because
that's going to be quite
important low frequency sound will come
in and
by the shape of it bounce and just keep
bouncing pretty much
forever until it just gets lost
in the wall and then high frequencies
are more so going to get absorbed
into the foam itself you can hear how
the room deadens echoes by clapping
constantly while closing the doors
totally changed the quality of the sound
definitely
there are reports that it's impossible
to stay in one of these rooms and remain
sane for a significant period of time
the record is apparently 45 minutes
i felt a little claustrophobic i got it
felt like there's a lot of
pressure on my head but why would that
be i mean
the air is no different in here what i
figured is just because when you listen
in a normal room
there's a lot of reverb to your ear that
means there's a lot of space
but there's none of that in here so it
feels claustrophobic it feels like
you're in a tiny room
like you're you could be in a coffin
maybe yeah
i think it's really an anxiety response
so you're used to having these sounds
around you
and then you don't anymore and so you
start to panic because you don't have
something you're used to and i think
that anxiety
can increase and cause some stress and
maybe that's why people
go crazy or hallucinate with sound it's
just because they're trying to
make up for what they're used to that
isn't there when i bring people in i
warned them hey if you get a little
dizzy please let me know so i can
get you out of the room before you make
a mess in in our
expensive facilities
[Laughter]
first you'll hear any rustle of your
clothing so you move an inch and you'll
hear it
then you'll hear any fluids that are in
your mouth or your throat you'll hear
them all moving around every time you
move your mouth
and um the longer you stay in there the
more you feel so you'll start to hear
the blood flow through your
brain have you heard it sounds kind of
like a ringing or a pulsing
can you kind of make the sound for us so
that we know what to listen out
of the of the blood flow yeah it sounds
like a pulsing like
some people say they can hear their
heartbeat coming from their chest as
well
have you heard that no a violinist
placed in one of these rooms was
apparently banging on the door within a
matter of seconds trying to get out
now other people say it's impossible to
stand up because you become so
disoriented dizzy
nauseous and and some people even hear
oral hallucinations
but to me it doesn't sound right you
know i believe that i should be able to
sit
in a room with no sound with the lights
off for as long as i like
and so i'm going to put myself to the
test by staying in this room for as long
as i can
have fun in silence thank you
now it is just me in the anechoic
chamber
and this is probably the quietest place
i have ever been
and in a second i'll tell the guys shut
the lights off
okay i think oh
i'm ready and the lights are off i'm
going to turn off the camera so i don't
have this light
and then there's only the audio recorder
that i'll keep with me
i'm not sure how long i've been in here
but i still feel quite comfortable
it's uh it's nice and quiet
i mean that's an understatement but it's
um
it's relaxing
if i hear anything i feel like i hear a
low pitched hum
[Music]
if i had to guess about how long i'd
been in here i'd say about
eight minutes
i feel like i'm more aware of my heart i
can feel each pulse
and i can almost feel it
radiating up my chest towards my head
like a wave
i might use the hiss i think that's just
from hearing loss
this just reminds me of that mission
impossible movie where
tom cruise sneaks into that building and
he has to
keep his decibel level low
that was the burp i don't know if you
could hear that
i can't say the really small sounds
seem amplified it's like your brain has
recalibrated
so the quiet things seem much louder
i feel like i can feel more things like
with every beat of my heart it feels
like
my body shakes a little bit
i like a device that has a little
motor inside how it gets shook around
like a phone
okay cameron looks to me like we're good
for time
if uh if it looks the same to you like
we're in 46 minutes
uh or over i'm happy to hop out
so uh yeah when you're ready
uh you can flip the lights back on if
you like
are you there
hello
i think i've been here for nearly an
hour uh according to my time checks
and uh and i didn't fall asleep i just
you know
i've had a good time it's a nice quiet
space i kind of feel like this would be
a good material to pad your bedroom in
not a problem anechoic chamber 45
minutes an hour
easy i could stay in here for five hours
i think i could get a lot of work done
in here
so uh now i just have to get out
and i'm gonna see if i can exit this
room
without them turning the lights on
even the door is nice and quiet
here we are back to the outside world
oh
hello how you doing live i am
i don't really understand how anyone
could go crazy in there i mean
quiet is kind of nice but then again
there are people who find
all sorts of situations really
uncomfortable like just being in a pitch
black room or
being in a small confined space so maybe
those types of people would find this
kind of unnerving i definitely noticed
that there were a lot of noises
like it wasn't just pure silence like i
actually had to work hard
to make things feel silent
otherwise you know there was a sound of
like just me rubbing my beard
or um or just like the rustle of your
clothes or every time you swallow
when you breathe perhaps the weirdest
thing i noticed was like my sense of my
heart
i just felt like it was pumping really
hard
and uh and i could feel almost like the
blood pushing up
through me it wasn't like i was hearing
it it's just like i was feeling it
and i was feeling as though in a way my
heart was shaking my body
that was something weird um but besides
that
nothing nothing crazy no no weird
hallucinations or anything like that
so i think the the myth that you can't
stay in here for longer than
45 minutes is uh is busted even though
this is not mythbusters i
i still think it's it's not true now if
you really hate silence you should
always carry an audiobook around with
you
and i can recommend a good one the fault
in our stars by my friend john green
it is an excellent book and it's been
basically at the top of the bestsellers
ever since it was released
and soon there's a movie coming out and
so you probably want to get through the
book before you go and see the movie
now you can download this book for free
by going to audible.com
veritasium or you can pick any other
book of your choosing for a one month
free trial
audible is an amazing site with over a
hundred and fifty thousand titles in
all areas of literature including
fiction non-fiction and periodicals
so you should check them out the link is
in the doobly-doo as john would say
so i'd like to thank audible for
supporting me and i would like to thank
you for watching