Noise pollution

While most research has been conducted on the effects of excessive hospital noise on patients, the article by Ryherd, Waye and Ljungkyist (2008) examines the effect of these high noise levels on unit staff. Ninety one percent of nurses surveyed felt that noise negatively affected them in their daily work, and almost half admitted to adjusting alarm levels so that they would not hear them. The literature review conducted by Ryherd et al. revelaed that staff take no action for the majority of…

No one on this earth can escape the sounds of noise. Noise is this unwanted, unnerving sound that causes an irritation in most people. Just as no one can escape noise, no one can escape death. Death is probably one of the most feared words in the English language. Death is this undesired uncertainty that threatens our belief that our lives will never end. Its causes most people to panic due to its unpredictability. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise tells the unusual story of how Jack Gladney, the…

Pollution is the most common factor that has caused our oceans to take a drastic turn for the worse. One of the highest overlooked types of pollution within the waters come from noise and transportation. In fact, sound waves travel farther and faster in the sea than in air and “many marine mammals like whales and dolphins, in addition to fish and other sea creatures, rely on communication by sound to find food, mate, and navigate” (Denchak). Human-caused sound waves disturb the marine animals’…

In 2012 a study out of Newcastle University revisited the land of gross noises and subjected 16 people to 74 different sounds from running water to the scrape of knives on glass, asking them to rank them on a scale from pleasant to excruciating. [pic: PD] Once again, the worst of the sounds fell in that bad-Hertz sweet spot…

The Use of Sound Design in Creating Fiction The crowd rustles, the jostling for seats rises and then slowly abates. Lights begin to dim, and a quiet stillness of anticipation palpably subdues the audience. After darkness and silence fills that space of minute eternity, sounds in orchestra escape into wanting ears and thus a sojourning through story, in the form of theatre, begins its irrepressible rein. Regardless of technology, or venue sophistication; regardless of social status or…

Silence, after a hard day of school, all I wanted was to relax to the ballads of 50 cent, and I got silence. The bass must have shifted an exposed wire and shorted the amplifier, I fixed this a few times before that it almost became routine, but it was not a shorted wire. Troubleshoot, no solution, what could it be? My set up was almost perfect, lacking solely in achievable decibels. Second hand children science encyclopedias along with Questions and Answers books got me this far and for a…

chewing tobacco he has taken up chewing gum, while I am happy that this change has been made, it can be known to drive me crazy. I’m not sure what’s worse the snapping of the gum after a bubble or the chewing noise in a small quiet room or car, either way it drives me up a wall. Now the noise of gum has bothered me since like middle school, and I know it bothers quite a few of people, but it’s just been magnified since it’s around everyday now I guess. These sound are one of the easier ones to…

deathly quiet, lifeless) I think to my self, “ am I hearing things, have I gone crazy?” (delirious, insane) I hear the noise coming from down the hall, I jump up and cautiously walk toward the bedroom door, the slightest light shining off from my alarm clock is glaring threw the dark (Lightless) bedroom. Grasping the bedroom door handle, getting ready to rapidly open the door, the noise appears again. I quickly but quietly get back to my bed. I lay awake in silence watching the clock minute by…

when traversing the corridors. I knew to expect the clip-clop of hard stepping walkers in the silent tunnels, and the high pitched buzzing and whining of electrical components overhead. Outside, the wind would make soft, mid pitched whuuu and shhh noises, which would serve as background for trees that would swish or rustle, people who’s voices would carry far in the open area, and the clanking and clanking metallic sounds of the construction that constantly plagues MIT. During the soundwalk, I…

John Cage's 4 "33" is about silence and possibly time. The first value that I think is significant to the composition is silence. When I think of the word silence, nothingness comes to mind. What I mean by nothingness is no noise; you hear not one person or any other kind noise around you.…