Quiet places on earth. The most peaceful places to relax and find inspiration. Hidden Mountain Village - Jiuzhaigou, China

They say that “silence is golden”, but there is a room in Minnesota in the USA that is so quiet that after a while you will simply feel unbearable there. The room blocks out 99.99 percent of external sounds, and no one has ever been able to endure more than 45 minutes while in it.

The most quiet place in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records is located in South Minneapolis at Orfield Laboratories. To achieve exceptional silence, the room used meter-thick fiberglass acoustic platforms, double walls of insulated steel and 30cm-thick concrete.

The company's founder and president, Steven Orfield, said that when it gets that quiet, your hearing begins to adapt.

“The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You begin to hear your heart beating, sometimes your lungs moving, or your stomach grumbling. In an anechoic chamber, you become the sound,” he explained.

Orfield explained that this is very confusing and keeps you sitting in one place. We navigate by the sounds we hear when we walk. In an anechoic chamber, you don't have any cues that allow you to balance and maneuver. If you find yourself here for half an hour, it's best to stay in your chair.

This camera is used by many manufacturers to test the volume of their products such as heart valves, display sound mobile phone, sound of a switch on a car dashboard. It is also used to determine sound quality.

But for a person such a room can become a severe test. After a few minutes of being in it, you get used to the absence of sounds, starting to pick up increasingly weaker sounds. In severe cases, this sensory shutdown can debilitate you. NASA astronauts, who are trained by being placed in a tank filled with water in a room, after some time begin to experience hallucinations as our body tries to create sounds out of nothing.

With the lights off, the longest a person could stand in this room was 45 minutes. The founder himself could only endure half an hour. According to him, what distracts people most is not noise, but silence.

They say that “silence is golden”, but there is a room in Minnesota in the USA that is so quiet that after a while you will simply feel unbearable there. The room blocks out 99.99 percent of outside sound, and no one has ever been able to endure more than 45 minutes in it. The quietest place in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is in South Minneapolis at Orfield Laboratories. To achieve exceptional silence, the room used meter-thick fiberglass acoustic platforms, double walls of insulated steel and 30cm-thick concrete.
The company's founder and president, Steven Orfield, said that when it gets that quiet, your hearing begins to adapt.
“The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You begin to hear your heart beating, sometimes your lungs moving, or your stomach grumbling. In an anechoic chamber, you become the sound,” he explained.
Orfield explained that this is very confusing and keeps you sitting in one place. We navigate by the sounds we hear when we walk. In an anechoic chamber, you don't have any cues that allow you to balance and maneuver. If you find yourself here for half an hour, it's best to stay in your chair. This camera is used by many manufacturers to test the volume of their products, such as heart valves, mobile phone display sound, and the sound of a car dashboard switch. It is also used to determine sound quality.
But for a person such a room can become a severe test. After a few minutes of being in it, you get used to the absence of sounds, starting to pick up increasingly weaker sounds. NASA astronauts, who are trained by being placed in a tank filled with water in a room, after some time begin to experience hallucinations as our body tries to create sounds out of nothing.

With the lights off, the longest a person could stand in this room was 45 minutes. The founder himself could only endure half an hour. According to him, what distracts people most is not noise, but silence.

They say "silence is golden" but there is a room in Minnesota
in the USA, which is so quiet that after a while you will feel
It's simply unbearable. The room blocks 99.99 percent of external sounds, and
no one has ever been able to endure more than 45 minutes while in it.

The quietest place in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records is in the South
Minneapolis at Orfield Laboratories. In order to achieve
exceptional silence, fiberglass acoustics were used in the room
Meter-thick platforms, double walls of insulated steel and concrete
30 cm thick.

The company's founder and president, Steven Orfield, said:
that when it gets that quiet, your hearing starts to adapt.

“The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You start to hear
how your heart beats, sometimes how your lungs move or how it grumbles
your stomach. In an anechoic chamber, you become the sound,” he explained.

Orfield explained that it is very confusing and makes you sit
at one place. We navigate by the sounds we hear when we walk.
In an anechoic chamber, you don't have any signals that allow you to
balance and maneuver. If you're here for half an hour,
then it’s better to stay on the chair.

This camera is used by many manufacturers for loudness testing
of its products such as heart valves, mobile phone display sound,
the sound of a switch on a car dashboard. It is also used for
determining sound quality.

But for a person such a room can become a severe test. In a few
minutes of being in it, you get used to the absence of sounds, starting to pick up
increasingly faint sounds. In severe cases, such switching off of the senses
can drain you. NASA astronauts are trained by being placed in a tank,
filled with water, in the room, after some time they begin to experience
hallucinations as our body tries to create sounds out of nothing.

With the lights off, the longest time I could stand
person in this room was 45 minutes. The founder himself could only endure
half an hour. According to him, what distracts people most is not noise, but silence.

The proverb says that silence is golden. However, it depends on how you use it. There is a place on our planet that can drive anyone crazy with its silence. This anechoic chamber at the Orfield Laboratory in Minneapolis (USA).

The Orfield Anechoic Chamber is the quietest place in the world. Here you will learn all the details about this modern torture device and sound research tool.

The word “anechoic” comes from the phrase “without echo.” That is, this is a room that does not create an echo, the walls of which do not reflect sound. In addition, the walls of such a chamber are created in such a way that they do not allow sounds from the outside to pass through. Complete isolation.

Thus, an anechoic chamber is an acoustically isolated appearance space. And the quietest anechoic chamber is the one at Orfield Laboratory. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this is the quietest place in the world.

Facts about the Orfield Anechoic Chamber

  • The Orfila anechoic chamber is the quietest place in the world. USA, Minneapolis.
  • The camera absorbs 99.9% of sounds.
  • A person can stay in an anechoic chamber for about 20 minutes. Stephen Orfield was able to stay there for half an hour. The record is 45 minutes.
  • A long stay in such a quiet room causes discomfort, deterioration of orientation and auditory hallucinations.
  • The Orfield camera is used to test the noise emission of computer, medical and other equipment, as well as to evaluate sound quality.



The quietest place in the world

Orfield Laboratories, which houses the quietest anechoic chamber, is located in Minneapolis, USA. According to developer Stephen Orfield, the camera absorbs 99.9% of all sounds.

Ideal silence in the room was achieved through the use of sound-absorbing panels, as well as 30-centimeter walls made of steel and concrete. Thanks to this, not a single sound can be heard from outside. There are no objects inside that could make sounds. The Orfield anechoic chamber is hidden behind two strong, soundproof doors.
The quietest place in the world drives you crazy. The sound of a closing door is the last sound a person who visits the cell will hear. After a few minutes, hearing begins to adapt to ideal silence, and the brain picks up the beating of its own heart, the sound of blood flow, the rumbling of the stomach and other sounds of the body that are normally inaudible.

A person who is accustomed to mostly orienting himself in space by ambient sound begins to feel uncomfortable. After about 20 minutes, the brain begins to invent sounds, and auditory hallucinations appear. Imagine, there is no light in the room yet, since the lighting fixtures inside can become an additional source of sound. Over time, moving around in such a room and finding your way around it becomes impossible.

The camera's creator, Stephen Orfield, was able to stay in his super-quiet room for half an hour and still hasn't broken his own record. The absolute record is 45 minutes of being in complete silence.

Imagine: you are sitting in a room all alone. Your household members are sleeping, the TV and computer are turned off, and there is not a single car on the deserted streets. There seems to be 100% silence around. But this is not so: crackling and noise are produced by electrical appliances connected to power sources (primarily the refrigerator), fish in the aquarium and the building itself. And even your breathing is about 10 dB (in case anyone has forgotten, noise is measured in decibels). Now imagine: in the USA there is a special room in which the noise level reaches -20 dB. We talk about it and about other quietest places on our planet.

Anechoic chamber, Minnesota (USA)

The first facility listed in the Guinness Book of Records as “the quietest place on Earth” was a unique anechoic room developed at the Orfield Laboratory in Minnesota. According to the company, tests showed a background noise level of -9.4 dB - a development about 16 times quieter than a bedroom. This miracle of the scientific world was built from plasterboard laid in 5 layers and other materials with an absorbent capacity of 99.5%. The anechoic chamber is literally suspended in an armored safe room that blocks electromagnetic radiation in both directions. But spending time in the room is still a pleasure: the reigning silence makes your ears pop, and you can hear your joints creaking.

Washington (USA)

New record holder - an anechoic chamber located in Washington state. The noise level in the room is -20.3 dB - here you can hear the movement of air particles. Like the Minnesota cell, the room is built from soundproofing materials with unusually shaped walls and floors. Microsoft uses it to test new technologies where sound quality is paramount.

The North American Mojave Desert is not very large, but in its heart are the Kelso Dunes, whose height in some places reaches 200 meters. It is forbidden to approach them by cars, airplanes do not fly over them, and the cries of birds rarely break the silence - in this place, which brought fear to the Indian tribes, you can hear the singing of the sands. The dunes move non-stop under the influence of the wind, changing their shape and emitting a low-frequency hum, which has been compared to the crackling of wires or the beating of drums. A unique acoustic effect is created by sand particles rubbing against each other, but scientists have not been able to establish why some deserts remain “silent” while others are endowed with voices.

Negev Desert (Israel)

Describing their impressions of traveling through the Promised Land, tourists and pilgrims note that the Negev is perfect place for meditation: as soon as you step away from the road, you will plunge into a world of ringing silence, interrupted only by the rare voices of pilgrims. And this despite the fact that on the territory of the dried desert, which occupies more than half, Bedouin settlements have been preserved (the government only 7 years ago became concerned about the issue of their status), as well as Ben-Gurion University, opened specifically for the development of the Negev.

Haleakala Crater (USA)

On Hawaiian island Maui is located National Park Haleakala, main star of which is the inactive volcano of the same name, rising to 3055 meters. Crater shield volcano, which locals call the “House of the Sun”, is popular among tourists. From here they like to watch the sunrise (which is very symbolic), and at the same time the flora and fauna, which has no analogues in the whole world. The main thing is that all this can be done in absolute silence: according to the Service national parks USA, noise level inside the crateris only 10 dB (that is, approximately the same as with even breathing).

Hoh Rain Forest (USA)

Hoh Rainforest, recognizedone of the wonders of Washington State , - Part National Park Olympic, included back in 1981. According to the US National Park Service, absolute silence in the protected area is created by lush coniferous and deciduous trees, as well asnumerous ferns and mosses that act as sound insulators . But things might have been different without human intervention: 11 years ago, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hampton started the One Square Inch of Silence project to keep the rain forest quiet. He placed a small red rock among the trees and convinced three airlines to change their routes to bypass the “inch of silence” so that people could listen to nature rather than the noise of engines.

Grand Canyon National Park (USA)

The American Grand Canyon is filled with tourists: it is visited every year