A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It
mic.com
mic.com
In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard
University... "I heard two sounds, one high and one low.
When I described them to the engineer in charge, he
informed me that the high one was my nervous system in
operation, the low one my blood in circulation." Cage had
gone to a place where he expected total silence, and yet
heard sound.
Plus, allegedly they've been able to record the Hum in some cases.
My first test would be stuffing their ears and putting them in a perfectly isolated acoustic chamber to see if they still hear it. I'm pretty sure they would.
(It might help to include some explanation in your comment.)
Therefore, each pixel of the cartogram contains an equal number of people in it.
If you bin your heatmap into pixels with equal number of people in them, then HOT regions in the final image will correspond not merely to the number of people who live in an area (like in the xkcd), but to the percentage of a constant number of people.
You can still recognize the underlying geography, because the population density isn't CRAZY skewed.
Here are some well-documented cartograms that give you a feel for what they can do:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378...
Maybe you need to cull places where there are too few people and 1 hum sufferer might already cause lots of heat, but I expect the result would be a proper amount of hum sufferers compared to total population of the place, maybe this way you can trace sources of those hums.
Also I bet lots of people don't talk about this publicy, because people say they are crazy or the sound is inside their head, I mentioned a high-frequency buzzing sound I hear on my apartment, and people already threw lots of disparaging and senseless remarks to me (even with me being very explicit that the sound comes from outside, because I cannot hear it when I close my windows or go to window-less rooms)
that can't even be isolated or really called a "sound," since reports differ so greatly
Is Driving People Insane
the article itself does not make or substantiate this claim
Nobody Knows What's Causing It
because "it" may or may not be a new thing, a single thing, or even a thing
Various "mysterious" noises are heard across the workd and cause problems for inhabitants. The noises are mysterious because it can be hard to work out what is causing the noise.
Noise is used as a tool by torturers. Tinnitus can sometimes lead people to attempt suicide. It seems fair to suggest that an unstopping unexplained noise can cause extreme distress. I dislike the wording "driving people insane" because I work in de-stigmatising MH problems, but the meaning is clear.
Here's an example of a mysterious noise from England.
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/HUM-KNOW/story-20347005-detail/...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum
EDIT --
I'd be interested to know what happens if they build a chamber that is provably isolated from "The Hum" and put sufferers inside it. Do those people still experience it? Even better if there's some kind of double blind way of isolating / not isolating the chamber from the Hum.
I can actually appreciate that it could test people's sanity over long periods of time.
That part seems obvious and a given. The whole bit about radio waves... The article tries to bridge the two by claiming that the suspect furnace near Windsor is producing "VLF waves" (maybe they're adopting it to audio frequency, but given the other parts it seems like they're trying to bridge the radio thing), only it's actually creating low frequency acoustic waves, measured seismically. Just normal noise, carrying enormous distances and irritating people. Just as irritating as the guy in the Honda Civic with the giant subs playing rap music.
(That offer holds for any story, btw. The best way to criticize a bad title is to suggest a better one.)
The article itself seems fine for HN.
It could still be chemical / something in the air that makes you hallucinate, but not talking about such basic questions is just so different from how I think.
the next most basic question is whether there are actually any physical sounds at any frequency - if microphones aren't sensitive enough at certain frequencies to tell us, then I would lead with that. If they're sensitive enough, but show nothing, then I would lead with that and then show a differential as to why it's not psychosomatic, or a chemical poison that gives you this effect, etc.
I just found this article too different from how I think to read through.
I asked that too, but some people like/love their cities, houses, relatives and friends and jobs. They don't just move on the first issue that happens.
If there is any sort of community built around a potentially hard to observe phenomenon, it's likely going to be a mess sorting out true stuff from false stuff.
As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a disease of old age.
Sorta OT, but I've actually been able to get some use out of my tinnitus. If there's background noise that's preventing me from falling asleep (but nothing too loud), I can purposefully focus on the sound of my tinnitus. It becomes more prominent and effectively drowns out the sound that keeps me awake.
I've also tried to use the hum as reference point to get perfect pitch earing, that is been able to tell if a note is a C, a F or whatever. Unfortunatly my tinnitus seems to be composed of several frequencies and out of tune. I can't make any use of it for musical purposes (yet).
But if tinnitus comes during your lifetime you do have a reference point, and you will most likely notice.
I have mild tinnitus and my self-experiments have been inconclusive - in some instances kneading my masseter and the other, minor, jaw muscles has seemed to give relief, but nothing obvious.
Incidentally, I also sometimes experience another form of "tinnitus" (not sure what to call it) that manifests itself as a swooshing sound when I move my eyeballs quickly. It's most noticeable if I'm tired or under the weather in some form. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced something similiar?
I don't suffer the severe symptoms decribed in the article. I think that Hum must be doing something else to the bodys of those affected.
My tinnitus, after some weeks of adaptation, became part of normal life. I can sleep, concentrate and so on. I do miss the old silence sometimes. Good music is the new silence.
Yeah, if it gets that bad, how about ...well, MOVING elsewhere?
This is a very important point. Low frequency noises can have a wavelength exactly the size of common rooms, yielding an unbearable amplification as the waves gang up with common peaks and troughs.
1) Locate someone suffering from the hum.
2) Take expensive pressure and sound equipment to their location.
3) Record all observable frequencies.
4) a) If nothing shows up, it's a personal biological problem. Direct problem toward medical professionals b) If something shows up on the frequency graph, identify the direction the sound is coming from (again using equipment that, you know, has been designed for this kind of thing and has been around for ages).
5) Follow sound, locate source.
6) Voilà, problem solved.
Someone tell me why it's not that simple.
You missed the part that it's a low frequency noise. Not very locatable those bastards.
Maybe some people begin to sub/consciously listen for their phone to buzz, vibrate or make a sound and notice the noise of air, static noise, computer fan hums, blood traveling inner ear?
Their utilities run @ 50hz. Maybe there's a conflict with older and newer products manufactured from other countries?
Maybe doppler radar.
Maybe dead air space.
Maybe they're not used to the sound of silence.
I've had an occasional rumbling in my left ear. It increases when on a cellphone or skype. Certain voices can also trigger it.
I had assumed it was musculo-skeletal; it developed after a bike accident where I hurt the left part of my jaw.
But if their hum is constant, it's definitely not what I'm hearing.
Soon people will start destroying all the machines!
Aren't VLF radio waves supposed to be very very weak energy-wise? Why would your body pick those.
I realize that this is entering conspiracy theory territory, but generating VLF from a distance is one of the things this thing does.
Finally, there's a body of empirical evidence that makes this theory more appealing. A study funded by the Canadian government and led by University of Windsor mechanical engineering professor Dr. Colin Novak spent the last year listening to the "Windsor Hum" that's been torturing residents in the Windsor area of Ontario since 2011.
The author continues with:
The study concluded that not only does the Windsor Hum actually exist, but its likely source was a blast furnace at the U.S. Steel plant on Zug Island, which reportedly generates a high volume of VLF waves during its hours of operation.
And then:
Dr. Novak's study caps off decades of Hum theories