Noise

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This article is about noise as an unwanted acoustic phenomenon. For other uses, see Noise (disambiguation).
NASA researchers at Glenn Research Center conducting tests on aircraft engine noise in 1967

Noise means any unwanted sound. Noise is not necessarily random. Sounds, particularly loud ones, that disturb people or make it difficult to hear wanted sounds, are noise. For example, conversations of other people may be called noise by people not involved in any of them; any unwanted sound such as domesticated dogs barking, neighbours playing loud music, portable mechanical saws, road traffic sounds, or a distant aircraft in quiet countryside, is called noise.

Acoustic noise can be anything from quiet but annoying to loud and harmful. At one extreme users of public transport sometimes complain about the faint and tinny sounds emanating from the headphones or earbuds of somebody listening to a portable audio player; at the other the sound of very loud music, a jet engine at close quarters, etc. can cause permanent irreversible hearing damage.

Sound intensity follows an inverse square law with distance from the source; doubling the distance from a noise source reduces its intensity by a factor of four, or 6 dB.

Regulation of acoustic noise

Main article: Noise regulation

Noise regulation includes statutes or guidelines relating to sound transmission established by national, state or provincial and municipal levels of government. After a watershed passage of the U.S. Noise Control Act of 1972[1], the program was abandoned at the federal level, under President Ronald Reagan, in 1981 and the issue was left to local and state governments. Although the UK and Japan enacted national laws in 1960 and 1967 respectively, these laws were not at all comprehensive or fully enforceable as to address (a) generally rising ambient noise (b) enforceable numerical source limits on aircraft and motor vehicles or (c) comprehensive directives to local government.

Underwater noise is one of 11 Descriptors of Good Enviromental Status according to the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive. [1]

Recording and reproduction noise

White Noise
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Main article: Sound recording and reproduction

In audio, recording, and broadcast systems audio noise refers to the residual low level sound (usually hiss and hum) that is heard in quiet periods of programme[<span title="usually just called "noise". "Audio noise"? (October 2011)">citation needed].

In audio engineering it can also refer to the unwanted residual electronic noise signal that gives rise to acoustic noise heard as hiss. This signal noise is commonly measured using A-weighting or ITU-R 468 weighting.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Legislation: the Marine Directive

Further reading

  • Kosko, Bart (2006). Noise. Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03495-9. 
  • Schwartz, Hillel (2011). Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang & Beyond. New York: Zone Books. ISBN 978-1-935408-12-3. 

External links

Look up noise in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sound
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Noise.
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