Veritasium
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2014–2019
10:33 · 33M views · Feb 18, 2014
Veritasium's Derek Muller spends an hour in a silent, dark anechoic chamber at BYU to test the claim that 45 minutes is the most anyone can bear. He reports on his experience and other people's reactions.
HN links it in threads about silence and quiet rooms, as a good first-hand look at the anechoic chamber that debunks the madness myth.
6 comments from Hacker News
There's a nice Veritasium video of an anechoic chamber here, with different people's reactions to it: this video I've been in sensory deprivation tanks, but never in an anechoic chamber (yet). However, I'm sure I'd love it. Many people live their life fleeing themselves, fleeing the thoughts in their head, and fleeing the realities they don't want to face. However, if you're emotionally healthy and are purposeful in establishing your identity and life direction, silence is simply golden. Not just auditory, but visual, social, and conceptual. Because of this, I don't think that there can be any singular preferable amount of noise for everybody. If there's some average, plenty of people will still find it distracting and grating, while others would find it too quiet and uncomfortable. Plus, I doubt it stays consistent even for a given individual. When you're stressed, you might want more quiet... or more distraction, depending on your preferences and reactions.
It's really not that bad. Some people find it unsettling, but many find it kind of relaxing. Derek from Veritasium has a good video on it for the interested. this video
Sure, but absolutes are rarely used in their literal meaning. "Silence" doesn't refer to the absence of any noise, it refers to a very low level of noise. The absence of any noise at all is very difficult to achieve (although you can come close: this video ). The same goes for other absolutes like "black" (e.g. [LINK] is arguably "blacker" than other "black" materials). You're technically correct (the best kind of correct), but your point is moot. Very few words that describe absolutes can be used "correctly" in practice. The logical conclusion is that these words (despite their dictionary definition) don't refer to actual absolutes but rather extremes: silence is not the absence of noise, it's just the presence of a significantly smaller amount of noise. Heck, even words like "pregnant" aren't absolute in practice. With "pregnant" the implication commonly is "will give birth" (which is why we have euphemisms like "expecting"), so someone who is nearly due can be said to be "more pregnant" simply because they are closer to giving birth (and therefore also have a higher chance of delivering successfully) whereas someone within their first months of pregnancy may often not even want to disclose their state because so many things can still go wrong. In practice "silent" or "black" is no more absolute than "cold" -- and it would be silly to expect people to refer to zero kelvin when they say "cold", don't you think? Disclosure: I spent way too much time around linguists as a student
Here's a video response^ by a guy who wanted to test this assertion. He spent about an hour in one at BYU, and seemed comfortable enough throughout. Interesting points: at around the 16 minute mark, he verbally estimates his time at 8 minutes; after the 45 min is up he asks for the lights to be turned on, and gets no response from the people outside the chamber. He calmly finds the door by using his cell phone as a light. ^ this video
The 45 minutes is apparently a myth. You can view an interesting video on ultra-quiet anechoic chambers in this veritasium video [1]. [1] this video