this is one of the quietest rooms in the
world known as an anechoic chamber it's
perfectly designed to remove sound
reflections and echo and i'm about to go
spend hours inside it alone in pure
darkness to see what happens to my body
and brain i was invited by 3m to come
visit their innovation center as well as
their anechoic chamber as well as one of
the loudest rooms in the world their
reverberation chamber
that shook
my
whole body of course i jumped at the
opportunity to potentially put myself
through a torturous experience for the
sake of science it's feeling like i'm
suffocating a little bit after all
there's been rumors floating around that
if you go in an anechoic chamber for
long enough you go crazy and lose your
mind we're gonna see if i lose my mind
if i haven't already when we got to the
3m testing center we were met by brian
who works in the lab he first brought us
into the reverberant chamber which is
basically the opposite of the anechoic
chamber
[Applause]
that actually like shook my body
here the room is designed to perfectly
reflect the sound making it pretty
intense and very loud
[Music]
when the sound leaves the source instead
of being absorbed by the walls or other
objects virtually all of the acoustic
energy that hits the wall is reflected
back into the room a few extra
reflectors are added into the room to
keep distribution of sound even for the
purposes of testing you can put anything
you want in there
sound here
microphones over there and just find out
how well is this panel blocking the
sound
time to pop balloon
to give you a sense of how muddled and
reflected the sound can get here's what
happens as i walk away from the camera
all right i'm just gonna talk and slowly
walk away and see what that sounds like
what that feels like obviously this room
is very loud
[Music]
so it's going to become harder and
harder
[Music]
finally the moment had come it was time
to enter the anechoic chamber here we go
okay whoa
wow
it feels so weird
and it's way bigger than i thought it
was gonna be for some reason what makes
this room unique is it's a full anechoic
so you can see no floor it's not fun
because you look you should be feels
like you're flying but you got am i
coming over give it a shot i'm so scared
okay
oh okay okay no problem right yep no wow
so as you can see from the room we have
these fiberglass wedges placed
strategically like this to absorb the
sound as it comes in and as that kinetic
energy and the sound waves hit those
wedges those sound waves are transferred
into heat
it's so weird it's so weird it's almost
like uncomfortable before locking myself
in the room alone for hours i wanted to
do a couple tests to compare this room
to the reverberation room for fun here's
the direct comparison
just like a little clap i'm gonna do a
quick little test and walk backwards as
i talk
to see how the volume changes in my
voice because the amount of echo
reaching the camera and the amount of
audio and sound waves reaching it will
change as i get further back especially
the fact that there is literally nothing
to reverberate it and concentrate it to
you
so the level of audio even though i've
stayed the same will probably feel quite
different
[Music]
so no echo brian then locked me in the
room alone to see how long i could
survive
i honestly find it really peaceful when
i first came in here
i felt really disoriented i'm also an
anxious person so it was just like going
from a state of being that you're used
to into a state that your brain isn't
used to processing like immediately let
off my fight or flight but now when i
sit in silence it feels really calming i
was told to keep my phone on me because
if i needed something they most
definitely wouldn't be able to hear me
after all the chamber is actually a room
within a room a cement cube within the
building on top of the fiberglass
paneling to keep as much sound from both
entering or exiting the room i wasn't
gonna hear anybody and they weren't
gonna hear me after about 30 minutes of
silence i became extremely aware of my
body i can hear a lot of ringing in my
ear which kind of freaks me out i just
hear like
literally i can hear noises inside my
head that are just like
well it felt like the pressure had
increased in my ear it was actually the
opposite effect in the real world our
ears are constantly hearing some sound
with pressure in the anechoic room the
pressure is gone so my ears were
actually experiencing less pressure it's
definitely a different state of being to
remove the sound but you start to sort
of acclimatize to it i feel more
physically in tune with what's happening
to me other parts of my body my
attention on those parts is heightened
so weird it's so crazy i don't want to
over dramatize it because i want to be
giving you a real experience it's pretty
subtle but it's something that i haven't
experienced before by the hour mark i
was really in my head but still sane
though i was dreading the lights about
to go off they're about to turn off the
lights and i'm actually afraid of the
dark as an adult i'm not ashamed to
admit that actually i am ashamed to
admit that but it's gonna be like are
there monsters
oh my god
oh my god i'm actually oh my god this is
so scary standing was a mistake because
i literally
feel like i'm gonna fall over i
immediately had to sit down in order to
avoid losing my balance completely
when people come i've seen videos of
people kind of like overly freaking out
i think it's just really peaceful we use
it a lot for as a development tool so as
we're developing new products or trying
to enhance new products making them even
better the way to get pure information
to make sure that we're not getting any
distractions from any other sources that
may be happening is you come in here and
you can really focus not only your
products your attention and your
equipment on what the actual problems
are knowing your data is going to be
very very good very solid and nothing
interfering outside to affect those
results i actually feel like i can hear
things more in my head now that the
lights are gone because it's all i can
focus on i don't even have a visual
input now i'm an adult who's actually
afraid of the dark
midway through sitting in utter darkness
i realized this whole part of the video
is gonna have
literally no footage so i turned my cell
phone light on to get a blair witch
style shot
real cool mitch
it's feeling like i'm suffocating a
little bit
it's so freaky
one hour and 44 minutes in and i started
to panic a little i was no longer
looking at the time so i could see what
that felt like and later realized i was
way off but i am like what if everyone
just went home
i think they forgot me in here
i swear it's been longer than i that we
agreed upon
but maybe my perception of time has
changed but it must have been
oh my god that was crazy
made it
that was really cool
it's pretty rare to just look and have
your eyes wide open and see nothing and
hear nothing so there you have it i did
in fact survive the world's quietest
room did not go crazy though that
diagnosis is still up for debate ryan
also let me go under the chamber which
apparently only a handful of people on
earth have ever done so that felt pretty
cool balloon
acquired ultimately it was a really
fascinating experience something that i
have never felt before and i want to
thank 3m for bringing me out to their
facilities 3m is really a company that
focuses on science and innovation and
their products are likely scattered
through your home or hiding in plain
sight around you on a daily basis so
it's been fun to explore the science
behind some of that and i actually
created a series on tick tock and
instagram covering more awesome science
behind their innovations that you can go
check out on those platforms all of it
is actually blown my mind and i hope you
find it as fascinating as i do otherwise
thank you so much for watching this
video make sure you like it and
subscribe and we'll see you next time
for some more science peace