"White noise"

[Jackie]

Wondering what "white noise" is?? That's a new one for me??? Explanation please???
Jackie

[tony]

There is a full High-Tech one (but not today ?)
But basically if you take a radio and off-tune it
- so that there is no music or voices
just a loud burble/swishing noise
That is (more or less) white noise
ANers sometimes hear or "percieve" to hear noise like it
It can trouble folk, and create headaches, and stress,
and it can reduce clarity of hearing on the good side
best regards
tony

[ppearl214]

Tony, perfect! thank you!  I always note it as .... go back to the days of "older" tv's, before 24-hr cable tv and HDTV..... turn on the tv at 3am and you would watch the "ant races"... the black/white "fuzz" (dots) that would jumble when nothing was being aired. It was best when watched after a night of partying... see which "ant" would win   But the sizzle/crackle was annoying (and for me, although intermittent, even today, it still  is annoying)

*shoves VERY gray hair back in head*

Phyl

[Jackie]

Thank-you for the explanation, I guess I have that too! I just always described it as a rustling, staticy, unpleasant type ocean wave sound. Now I have a name for it!
Is that a medical term???
Jackie

[jb]

Here's a description from "How Stuff Works":  http://science.howstuffworks.com/question47.htm
I guess it's a "science" term.
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White noise is a type of noise that is produced by combining sounds of all different frequencies together. If you took all of the imaginable tones that a human can hear and combined them together, you would have white noise.

The adjective "white" is used to describe this type of noise because of the way white light works. White light is light that is made up of all of the different colors (frequencies) of light combined together (a prism or a rainbow separates white light back into its component colors). In the same way, white noise is a combination of all of the different frequencies of sound. You can think of white noise as 20,000 tones all playing at the same time.

Because white noise contains all frequencies, it is frequently used to mask other sounds. If you are in a hotel and voices from the room next-door are leaking into your room, you might turn on a fan to drown out the voices. The fan produces a good approximation of white noise. Why does that work? Why does white noise drown out voices?

Here is one way to think about it. Let's say two people are talking at the same time. Your brain can normally "pick out" one of the two voices and actually listen to it and understand it. If three people are talking simultaneously, your brain can probably still pick out one voice. However, if 1,000 people are talking simultaneously, there is no way that your brain can pick out one voice. It turns out that 1,000 people talking together sounds a lot like white noise. So when you turn on a fan to create white noise, you are essentially creating a source of 1,000 voices. The voice next-door makes it 1,001 voices, and your brain can't pick it out any more.
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[Jackie]

Oh thank-you!!! Awhile ago, I had stepped into my husbands office and the fan on his humidifier came on and I said "do you hear that, that's what my Tinnitis sounds like sometimes". I just didn't know the scientific term for it! You are all such a wealth of knowledge and the most wonderful people! I am on this forum about 5 times daily, checking out what's new! Never to old to learn, right, or eh, for you Canadians! I'm still watching and waiting, for now!
Jackie

[sgerrard]

Well if you are in the mood for fancy terms, there is also something called "pink noise". It is like white noise, but the lower frequencies are emphasized more. It is considered to be closer to the range of frequencies in most music, and is used to fine tune audio systems, among other things. Just a fun fact for the day.
Steve

[Denisex2boys]

What I can't stand is the 'warbling' of the radio when I block off the good era - it's like an old fashioned record playing at the wrong speed .......  I get the white noise too - almost like a SWSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - a balloon losing air ........  and the other night I awoke and thought there was a tv on someone and the signal had gone - all I heard was this loud HUM - turns out there was no tv on - LOL!  Just a new sound from the AN ear ...... ARGH!

[OTO]

One of my college housemates use to like white noise when he slept, he would tune the radio off a station and turn it down real low... he said that low static shushing sound.... was soothing and help mask other disturbing sounds....