A noise two percent of people can hear | Hacker News Reader

A noise two percent of people can hear

theatlantic.com

25 pointspseudolus33 comments

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Here is a less 'conspiracy theory' styled set of articles about "The Windsor Hum".

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/world/canada/windsor-hum....

https://www.theguardian.com/business/shortcuts/2018/feb/21/w...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/a-mysterious-and-mad...

https://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor...

There's an article where he linked the hum to possible behavioural changes and mentioned such an effect with respect to Adam Lanza (the Sandy Hook shooter) [0]. That alone should have prompted The Atlantic to have done a little more fact checking.

[0] https://www.newtownbee.com/brookfield-man-implored-police-to...

Did you watch the whole thing? This article is mentioned in the video.

I must confess I only read the article and got through the first five minutes of the documentary.

This is really interesting and I'm glad The Atlantic is covering it. I've heard about this before.

This guy is an a actual engineer and he seems to be going about this in a scientific manor. Still, I find it interesting he couldn't trace back or triangulate the vibrations to their source. Their obviously real, as seen by the bodies of water moving like pools and such.

Is the difficulty in triangulating frequencies this low is because it's difficult to get an emission direction?

The gas pipeline is a good theory, but then he goes on about all kinds of symptoms, mental health, schizophrenia, school shootings ... that's where it turns to the entire "mercury teeth filling" issue. The guy who was convinced mercury fillings lead to all kinds of issues said he had links to MS, neurological disorders, etc. etc. ... basically every possible ill .. You might as well say The Devil + Snake Oil at that point.

It's sad he spent so many years of his life researching this. I would have just moved. He lived way out and probably had a commute anyway (or maybe he worked from home or was retired)? Sure it's work and you might loose some money selling/buying, but moving costs for a house that size wouldn't be more than $2k~$5k and you could just move to a new area.

Yeah, that's his biggest problem. I was with him as he presented evidence, but then he just dives into all kinds of conclusions and wanders straight into conspiracy theory territory and loses credibility fast. I do think the gas pipeline theory as some real merit and, it appears, to have some strong circumstantial evidence to support it, but to draw conclusions from the data? Sorry, but you just can't. There isn't enough, and to try linking it multiple mental health issues? That's not how that's done.

I sleep close to an electricity box and it emits a low frequency hum that can be maddening if exposed to it for long periods of time. It can even wake me up at night. I don't think it's the same hum as described in the article though. In general, EMF is something to avoid, although it's very hard to dodge it in urban areas where electricity boxes and wires are always within short distance.

The hun you are hearing from that box isn't from EMFs. It could be a lot of things though. A common one is a high pitch hum from transistors. That can actually indicate that they're wearing down (kids can hear this the best. So ask them about a high pitch noise from an old TV. They'll think it's normal). A low hum could be something mechanical inside. Or is could be some kind of resonance. Hard to say what they are, but they aren't EMFs.

Magnetostriction is what makes transformers hum. The magnetic field changes the shape of the material turning it into a sort of loudspeaker.

https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Materials_Science/Sup...

Five years ago there were reports of "the Surbiton hum", precisely where I live – that is, I reside in exactly the part of Surbiton where the hum is most audible, to those who can discern it. Reports started in a local forum and made their way up to an article in The Times[0] which was itself reported in Fortean Times[1]. I was kinda disappointed not to be able to hear it myself.

[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/weather-eye-a-resident-hu... [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/dsf/14958914130/

Could it be registered with equipment that was designed to pick up low frequency sound? Is the trouble with tracking down this stuff is because it's hard to get directional readings and triangulate low frequency sound? (The reason it doesn't matter where you position a subwoofer in a surround sound setup).

This sounds like exactly the sort of thing that noise-cancelling headphones are good at counteracting.

I too suffer from a "hum", but in my case it has a clear explanation: a noisy ventilation fan on the roof of my building, right above my bedroom.

Admittedly, headphones can be a bit uncomfortable when you wake up with them still on your head, but the feeling of silence and being able to get to sleep easily is priceless by comparison.

Perhaps someday, someone will develop noise cancelling earbuds that can be comfortably worn while sleeping, even if you roll over?

The wiki description of the phenomenon [1] covers that using earplugs doesn't reduce the sensation. Hence I don't see how cancelling headphones would be different — if the sensation isn't direct audio then it wouldn't be caught.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum#Description

Active noise cancelling headphones are, in my experience, much more effective at cancelling continuous low-frequency sounds than earplugs which only attempt to block them.

On the other hand, if “the hum” is at frequencies that are normally too low to be heard by most of us, then they may be also too low to be recognised by noise cancellation hardware.

A range of frequencies are given in the Wikipedia link for the phenomenon, in various different cities, and some of them should certainly be within the normal, cancellable range.

It's clear this is a phenomenon...too much subjective evidence to rule it out. He appears to have approached this from a fairly scientific approach and appears to have gathered some quantitative evidence. Where it breaks down is in the drawing of conclusions.

The real problem with this issue appears to be in the lack of interest from others in the scientific community to properly investigate it. If his theory about gas pipelines has merit, then it seems like there would be some simple ways to investigate and test that.

TLDR: Get your ears checked, rule out medical causes.

Recently, my sweetie was going mad because she was hearing annoying sounds. From her description, it was a high pitched whine with a periodic click. Worse at night (when things were more quiet).

Long story short, she now has an age related form of tinnitus. From memory, a small section of the tissue under the follicles in her inner ear has weakened. So that frequency range is impaired (the ringing) and the hairs flop around (the click, probably in sync with breathing or heartbeat, or whatever).

TIL: There are many forms of tinnitus and other hearing diseases. I have Drum & Bass induced tinnitus -- always wear ear protection while clubbing -- and had no awareness of other forms.

TIL: Anxiety and hearing problems can be a vicious cycle. Once she got a diagnosis, and some mitigations, her anxiety subsided. Which is supposedly typical.

Hello, I have found your comment to my prev. comment, posted some months ago "Hey alexibm. Since neither of us included contact info in our profiles, commenting here instead of a PM. I stumbled across one of your prior comments. All I want to say is I hope you're now doing well. Or least better. I'll delete this reply in a few days, or after you acknowledge, which ever comes first."

Thank you for looking out for me. I'm pretty sure, I know the comment you are referring to. At this point, it is been over 2 years. I would not say, I'm completely healed over, but I'm in a lot better place than I was before. To this day, I have bad days.

Person in question, who caused a lot of needless harm to me, recently popped-out on my FB (haven't spoken to her in 2 years). She was not apologetic, instead, she told me how fun it is skiing in Alps. When I question, if she understands that she caused a lot of harm to me, she went silent. From what I understood, she wanted to see if I have forgiven her since then ... I didn't. Asked her to never come back to my life.

Hi. Glad you're doing better.

Some people disappear, with out so much as a goodbye. The lack of closure leaves a huge wound.

Other people just won't go away. I also have my zombie tormenters. One just defeated my best efforts to block. Just when you think they're gone for good, they pop up again. FFS.

Jeffrey from the BBC comedy 'Coupling' calls those people 'unflushables'.

Someone someday will make a mint with a proactive "ghosting" app (or service). Short of restraining orders, of course. :)

Best wishes.

The obvious question that no one seems to have asked nor answered: can a microphone detect this sound?

I was wondering this as I was reading the article. As a layman, seems like a very obvious question and I'm not sure why it's not explored in the article. Could an expert explain why?

I haven't watched the video but it looks like they might touch on that.

The linked-to documentary ("Doom Vibrations") shows Kohlhase armed with a microphone and a spectrograph.

My personal belief is that these kinds of news articles happens when you mix together (1) some legitimate phenomenon for which it's difficult to measure (or not obvious what physical dimensions to measure) with (2) nutcases who love mysteries/conspiracies. Maybe they or people they know are really suffering as a result of some external stimulus and we don't have a good way to diagnose or treat them (or identify the stimulus). That's a tragedy and it would be great if someone could pursue it and identify it. But they're clearly nuts and we shouldn't entertain their speculation until/unless they can show objective evidence.

He’s clearly trying to quantify it with many different measurements in the video. Shoes his dog reacting to something, vibrations in water, etc.

His dog's "reaction" is all based on his conjecture that its behavior is due to the same phenomenon that he describes hearing. Same with the water.

There's no evidence presented that links the waves with the sound he claims to hear or his claims that the dog's behavior is abnormal. But part of the problem there is that the filmmaker is choosing to strike (IMO) a very mysterious tone with the editing and score. If we wanted to be non-nutcases, we'd cut to the MD PhD human audiology expert or the physicist or someone who would be able to substantiate or refute the claims.

"Yes, I've sampled all kinds of places and this low frequency band is not normally so powerful."

"Yes, some humans can hear this band. We did a controlled test with the subject and he had abnormally good response at the low frequency range."

We didn't see anything of the sort. So either the filmmaker decided not to consult experts, decided to put that towards the end (), or consulted them and they refuted the claims.

() I'm not patient enough to get past the video where the nutcases debate the priorities while exploring the wilderness.

Yes. There are recordings of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPDILKQjJW8

(You'll need good headphones.)

Could definitely hear that!

The governments have funded multiple studies on this. The answer is no.

It could even be the wind interacting with some structure nearby.

In that case, it would presumably be moderated or eliminated on calm nights?

Noise cancelling umbrella above your whole head?

I used to live in Windsor. The Windsor hum is complete bullshit.

If the title holds true (two percent of population is affected) then it isn't too likely you'd fall within that.

You know what doesnt happen in Detroit? The Windsor hum is just for Windsor. How come Detroit folks never hear it?

You know what else Windsor has?

Cancer clusters all over the city. https://www.wechu.org/reports/remington-park-cancer-cluster-...

If you go somewhere in Windsor, anywhere, people will tell you they are in a cancer cluster.

Maybe it's because of the Radon? https://www.wechu.org/healthy-homes/radon

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/radon-gas-could-affec...

Oh right, government came in, discovered Windsor is unusually clear of radon. We had LESS radon than the average. Due primarily to the salt mine and impenetrable deposits. Oh and that "Radon Measurement Professional" He's a truck driver. He knows nothing about nothing. I've talked to him, I wouldn't trust him working at mcdonalds. His scam he told me about

Did you also know Windsor gets thousands of cases of west nile every year? Pretty much all of them it turns out didn't actually have west nile...

Oh how about the thousand people who blamed the Ohio nuclear plant for radiation poisoning. https://windsor.ctvnews.ca/amherstburg-residents-near-nuclea... Oh good we have radiation pills now.

Windsor is a dying city. What's far more common in Windsor is people running scams. You name the scam, I bet I know someone who is doing it.

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