WEBVTT - The Substance of Silence 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:16.040 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.799 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.040 I'd like you to think about something, and that's what 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.360 I'm here for. I want you to think about the 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.800 idea of the substance of absence in our in our 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.720 sensory experience of the world. So we all experience this 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.199 in our lives where there is a stark disconnect between 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.839 everything we know about physics and what are intuitions tell us. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.000 And one of the examples of this is that there 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:47.280 is no such substance in physics as cold, right, Cold 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.640 is just the absence of heat energy. And yet if 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.959 you have an experience like mine, when you hold an 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.840 ice cube in your hand, it doesn't just feel like 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.240 heat is leaving your body. It certainly feels like you 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:02.600 are meeting cold. You are meeting a substance of coldness 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:08.000 that is an independent material reality in itself, not unlike 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.080 how many people process sight as a beam coming out 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.479 of their eyes, like they think about it in those terms, 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.720 even though most of those people, I think are going 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.399 to realize that that's not how vision works, but we 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.679 can't help it interpret what's happening it as such. Yeah, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.600 it's almost like people think of sight as an apprehending power. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.120 It's like you would reach out to pick something up. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.840 So in order to get visions, you must be reaching 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.680 out with your eyes in some way to pull things in. Yeah. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.560 Also to mention light, there's no such substance in physics 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.600 as darkness. Of course, darkness is just the absence of light. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.399 But when a cloud passes in front of the sun 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.200 and it casts a shadow over the earth, and you 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.760 get that little shiver when that happens, it is hard 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.120 not to think of that shadow, the darkness, as a 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.880 substance unto itself, at least if you're like me. Yeah, 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.480 I mean unless an entity is actually stepping out of 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.680 the negative material plane, right, if there's actual actually a 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.440 denizen of the shadow realm uh, breaching your immediate universe. Well, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.000 of course I speak not of beings of darkness, because 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.040 merely to speak of them is to summon them, and 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.799 now we should be watching our backs. But another substance 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.600 like this is the substance of silence. Right, So silence 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.080 is not a thing, it's merely the absence of the 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.400 vibrational pressure waves of energy that we call sound. But 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.359 in psychological terms, I wonder it is silence a substance 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.680 in the same way as cold and darker to me. 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:39.639 And if it is, I think we may have come 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:45.000 across some interesting biological reasons for feeling this way. So Robert, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.960 back in, you and Julie did an episode of this 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.440 show where you talked about the quietest place in the 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.200 entire world. And I went back and listened to the episode, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.320 and at this time, Uh, the quietest place in the 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.919 world was a type of room known as an an 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.320 a co wick chamber, meaning a chamber that's echo free 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.519 no echoes, at a facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota called or 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.960 Field Laboratories. You remember doing this episode. I assume no 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.560 one has wiped your memory. It's amazing how much I 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.560 forget about some some old episodes. Um, but I do 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.320 remember this one. Yes, Okay, So if you haven't seen it, 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.680 you should google pictures of this lab facility you out 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.720 there listening. According to Atlas Obscura, it's actually in the 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.800 same building where Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.720 not the same room, but the same building. Uh, and 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.880 so this room is used to test appliances and equipment 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.880 for sound production under very very sensitive conditions by creating 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.480 the most the quietest environment we could imagine. And to 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.080 achieve these conditions, the room has been built in a 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.440 very weird way. So it's got double layered steel and 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.880 foot thick concrete walls. It's got this vault type door, 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.280 and then on the walls from floor to see ling, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.480 they are covered with fiberglass acoustic wedges, which are these 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.960 fuzzy looking three foot long axe blades that stab out 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.400 into the room from the walls. And it looks like 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.080 at any moment the trap is going to spring and 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.600 the walls will begin closing in and these wedges are 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.720 going to become interlocking teeth, you know, to grind your 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.479 bones between them. But as far as we know, it 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:24.520 is not a trap. People have been to the room 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.719 and survived, uh, though maybe not unscathed. So it's just 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.719 a room with a very powerful thirst for absorbing sound. 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.159 And according to the Guinness Book of World Records account 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.680 the ambient sound levels inside it are about negative thirteen 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.760 decibels or d b a actually, which is just an 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.760 adjusted version of decibel measurement we will horrify the audio 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.320 engineers and just use decibels for simplicity, say going forward. 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.120 But so when you when you hear something like negative 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.080 thirteen decibels, that might sound kind of weird, right, How 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.159 how could you have negative sound, especially since you you 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.800 look at various lists and near total silence is zero 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:11.039 A whispers fifteen, so it's like a negative whisper. How 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.000 is that possible? Well, zero decipels actually doesn't mean no sound. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.760 Zero decibels is just taken to be the threshold of 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.200 normal human hearing and birth your best hearing. Infancy hearing 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:28.040 people can usually detect sounds above zero decibels. Below zero decibels, 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.000 you know, too bad a very human scale. It's a 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.480 scale based on human perception of sound, not sound is 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.960 some sort of um, concrete thing outside of human experience exactly. 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.599 And so going into this space of negative decibels is 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.560 like going into the underverse. It puts you in a 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.880 very bizarre state of mind. People who have gone here 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.560 report that they have a hard time staying in the 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:54.839 room too long. They used to have this thing. All 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.520 the articles about it mentioned this challenge that the owner 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.360 seems very excited about. Where he would test to people 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.039 to see how long they could stay in there. You 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.360 seem to get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of it. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.880 But in the under verse with the necromongers from Chronicles 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.120 of Riddick, I do appreciate a good Chronicles of Riddick 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.960 reference to. Actually, I've never seen chronically that's the under 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.360 verse is a big deal in that. Oh, the under 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.479 verse is bigger than than Riddick. Oh well, I don't know, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.920 ridd it's pretty big. If you've seen his arms, he's 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.080 very very big. I guess you'll. You'll have to show 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.640 it to me someday. But so anyway, supposedly, inside this 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.680 antichote chamber, what happens is people become just hyper aware 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.200 of the sounds produced by their own bodies. You are, 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.320 you start to hear the thump of your own heart, 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.960 and hear the kind of squelching of your digestive system, 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.480 and you hear this hissing and rustling which is your 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:47.240 own respiration. And media reports also claim that people become dizzy, disoriented, 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:50.840 sometimes kind of panicky, which suggests that our hearing is 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.280 in some way tied to our body orientation and movement. Right, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.880 you may have read these stories about blind people using 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.560 forms of echolocation to hear where they are in a room. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.760 This kind of suggests that even people with normal senses, 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.920 all of their senses functioning normally, might still use some 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.720 kind of echolocation and basic body orientation. My favorite detail 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.040 I heard was I read one story in The Guardian 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.960 about a man who went into this room and he 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.120 claimed that after his ears adjusted, he could hear his 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:24.120 own scalp moving over his skull when he changed facial expressions. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:26.760 You know, one of the important things to keep in 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.520 mind about all this too, is that, of course it 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.120 goes without saying that humans have evolved to thrive in 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.240 a certain sort of environment and with a certain amount 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.240 of sound in their immediate environment. So we're we have 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.800 We did not evolve to to live in in quiet chambers. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.080 We evolved to live in the world, and so when 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.400 we are deprived of almost like the oxygen of sound, 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.240 so much we have to it's almost like the mind 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.559 has to gulp in more of it. If it doesn't 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.000 have something to chew on, it will start chewing on itself, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.840 which is certainly a trend that occurs time and time 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.760 again in any kind of experiment looking into sensory deprivation, 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.640 and we are discussing, you know, one major area of 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.320 sensory deprivation here. And this is another thing that gets 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.840 mentioned in in context with these anteco chambers is that 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.960 you might go into there and experience auditory hallucinations just 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.960 because of that sensory deprivation element. But anyway, since that 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.640 podcast that you and Julie recorded, there's a new kid 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:32.200 in town. Microsoft has built a silent mind flare chamber, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.680 even more psychedelically quiet than the one at oar Field Labs. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.240 And much like the other facility, this one is used 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.839 for sort of audio and device testing in very sensitive conditions. 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:46.120 But it's located at Microsoft's Audio lab in Redmond, Washington, 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.400 and according to Business Wire, Microsoft contracted a company called 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:54.199 Echo Noise Control Technology I think actually the same company 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.880 that built the oar Field room UH to build this 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.360 new dungeon of lost whisperhaps for them, and it was 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.959 completed in July. But compared to or fields negative thirteen decibles, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.200 this room gets as quiet as negative twenty point six decibles. 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.719 And this is close to about as quiet as a 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:16.000 room filled with atmosphere can possibly be. So since sound 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.400 is caused by mechanical pressure waves in a medium such 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.800 as air or water. There is no sound at all 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.280 in a vacuum. If you were to go into the 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.880 vacuum of space, you wouldn't hear anything. But in a 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.480 room filled just screams exactly. But in a room filled 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.800 with normal atmosphere, negative twenty three decibles is about as 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.040 quiet as things can get, because that's the sound level 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.720 of what's known as Brownian motion, which is the random 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:45.000 movement of air particles rustling against one another. I would 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.640 love to hear what that sounds like. I think Brownian 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.320 motion of air particles. There's actually an email album, yeah yeah, 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:57.400 like a late seventies a perfect companion to metal machine music. Yea. Anyway, 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:02.000 so I started thinking about this room and about how 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.559 there are actually plenty of god beings and monsters from 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.440 the history of human imagination who have found themselves in 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.200 a dire quest for a place like this room. I 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.320 think that the quest for peace and quiet is it's 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.520 we think of it as something of the modern age, right, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.319 you live in the city, or there's the traffic horns, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:27.080 honking people, screaming people I don't know, arguing about Pokemon 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.320 go and about whether adults should play it or not 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.400 outside your window at all hours of the night. And 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:37.360 we come to associate this feeling of of this noisy 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:42.400 cacaphony with modernity. But but this feeling goes way back. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.280 Oh yeah, I mean, really, humans haven't changed that much, 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.520 not so much that they've stopped being annoying and obnoxious 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:55.760 and loud. We've we've had a loud talkers among us. 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.880 We've had we've had individuals who cannot wake up silently. 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.680 Uh since time out of mind. Though, then again, I 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.640 do think it's kind of interesting. We're going to mention 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.920 a few of these that the quest for silence, the 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.280 desire for peace and quiet, is often associated with villains, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.760 not heroes. Well you do see, Yeah, the I mean, 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.640 I think I think it falls on both sides. I 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.720 guess the heroes that are seeking silence, they tend to 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.560 want to share that path to silence with others. So 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.440 it's more about, hey, everybody, let me show you the 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.200 way to the silence. Let me show you a way 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.840 of silence that will better your life, whereas the monsters 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.640 are a little more selfish. Well, one great example of 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.960 this is the enemy a leash the creation myth of 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:46.120 ancient Mesopotamia, which you see in ancient Sumerian and Babylonian texts. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.520 Originally at Sumerian focused on the god in Leal. Later 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.280 the Babylonian version is altered to glorify the Babylonian god 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.719 mar Duke. But the story is pretty much that the 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:01.840 gods Apsu and Tiamat freshwater and salt water personified. They 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.920 they sort of live in this primordial chaos and they 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.200 create a younger generation of gods who just make a 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:14.240 great rucus. They cause disorder, irritating noise, and Opsu, in 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.120 reaction to this, plots to destroy his creations in order 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.120 to get some peace and quiet. Quote, by day I 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.400 cannot rest, by night, I cannot lie down in peace, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.359 but I will destroy their way. Let there be lamentation, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.640 and let us lie down again in peace. Oh nice. Now, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.640 of course, later a hero has to come and fight 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.480 these beings. Actually, so Opsu gets destroyed, and then Tiamatt 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.840 his his sort of companion, his female counterpart becomes a 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.200 monster that has to be fought. But so yeah, not 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.120 the heroes of the piece here, But they want some 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.280 peace and quiet, that all all these new created beings 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.760 are just too loud and irritating. It's in it always 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.600 the way. The youth are loud, and they need to 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.120 they need to pipe down because those old people are 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.280 trying to get some sleep. I wonder if that is 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:11.840 what's behind the idea of Grendel in Beowolf, because he 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.320 he quite famously is not a fan of the noise, 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.640 not a fan of the partying that's coming from the 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.240 mead hall across the way, right. So what's what's the 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:26.200 basic story of Grendel and Beowulf. It's Beowulf comes to 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.520 Rathgar's mead Hall of hero right in the land of 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.800 the Dane men, and they they party in the hall 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.040 and have their big feasts, and somewhere nearby there's this 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.600 monster called Grendel. Not actually described physically very much. Yeah, 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:48.400 virtually no physical descriptions um, which means basically any interpretation 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.800 you have is valid. I did read some great translations 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.520 of the description. What they do say about him the 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.920 march Stepper, famous who dwelt in the more fins, the 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.520 marsh and the fast nous, a fiend in hell. This 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:07.120 ghastly demon was named Grendel, infamous stalker of the marches 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.360 who held the Moor's finn and desolate stronghold, the land 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.120 of the marsh Monsters. Nice. I always liked that the 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.880 way John Gardner described him in his novel A Grendel, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.840 which is one of my my favorites. He described him 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:26.440 his quote a shadow shooter, earth rim roamer, walker of 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.160 the world's weird wall. Oh, that's so great, and that 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.920 captures this is a feature of the Anglo Saxon poetry, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.320 is the alliteration there where you hear the same words 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.280 starting consonants used over and over, and Gardner captures that 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.560 very well. But anyway, so in the story, of course, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.360 Beowulf has to go and kill Grendel, and the reason 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.480 he does that is because he's a jerk, basically he is. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.880 But also it's because Grendel comes into Rothgar's mead hall 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.240 and and messes him up. He comes in and kills 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.120 He does kill a lot of a lot of people 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.880 in the uh in the Damon's the sense. Yeah, so 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.800 why does he come into the meat hall and kill 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:04.400 the Dane men? Well, there are a couple of ways 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.800 you could read this, but the basic way is the 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.560 way it's described in the poem. It's kind of vague, 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.600 but it seems like he's annoyed by the noise they're making. 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.680 So one translation reads quote then the bold spirit impatiently 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.640 endured dreary time, He who dwelt in darkness. He that 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.120 every day heard noise of revelry loud in the hall. 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.360 There was the harmony of the harp, the sweet song 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.920 of the poet. Uh, and he doesn't like this noise. Now, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.240 it's unclear to me, and I think they're actually differing 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.120 opinions on this. Whether the text means that Grendel was 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.119 actually jealous of the Danes, you know, friendship and happiness, 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.000 their their camaraderie and the party, or merely that he 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.480 just couldn't stand the noise. The sound of it bothered him. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.040 But is it the same question we ask ourselves when 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.040 whenever we're annoyed by a neighbor having a loud party? 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.640 Am I annoyed because they are loud and I want 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.080 to sleep right now? Where am I loud because I 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.120 was not invited? Or I am not invited to parties 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.800 like this anymore? That that line of questioning, well, it 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.560 might be hard to tell the difference. Yeah, Robert, you 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:12.000 made a fascinating observation I had never considered before. Oh yeah, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.360 tell me tell me about Oh well, I've I read 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.720 a lot of Dr SEUs folks these days, and so 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.600 anytime I read or if we end up viewing The Grinch, 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.480 Who's still Christmas, the comparisons are are pretty uh, are 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.480 pretty obvious, because in Grendel you have a monster that 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.360 lives out in the boonies who comes into the center 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.680 of civilization and unleash's havoc when there is too much noise, 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.800 and the same thing happens with the Grinch. The Grinch 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.840 hates the noise of the Christmas season, even the g 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.000 r is there. Yea, it seems like it's got to 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:51.000 be intentional, right, Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.600 There's one thing I hate all the noise, noise, noise, noise. 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.040 It's the who's in Whoville are like the Dane men 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.800 and hero Yeah, except instead of uh, you know, coming 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.320 in and killing who's, he just was gonna he's gonna, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.359 uh you know, he's gonna surgically remove the cause of 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.560 their joy, uh, and the joy being the cause of 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:12.840 their noise. But of course that backfires and he has 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.800 to remove Christmas. But then his heart grew three sizes 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.479 that day. Yeah, they're a number of anatomical complications in 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.240 the comparison, but it doesn't happen to Grendel. Grendel, I 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:28.080 believe his head shrinks many sizes that day. Yeah, but 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.160 well I'm not sure he gets his head cut off. Yeah. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.280 Also of the arm, yeah, arm to the arm, the 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.600 arm is cut off? First, is that a call going 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.960 got cut off? Because I think blades don't quite cut him, 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.439 like blades melt or something when they when they they 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.399 hit his blood. Description, there's some descriptions that can be 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.560 interpreted that either Grendel's blood is acidic and is eating 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.679 through the blade or it is so hot that it 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.399 is melting the blade. But Beowulf just rips off the 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.840 arm and then Grendel runs away. Wow. So here we've 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:03.480 got these monsters and god beings, uh, causing mayhem and 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.080 havoc and trouble for the creatures that dwell under their 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.639 level of power by trying to shut them up, just 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.359 wanting silence. And and if we can only find a 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.119 room for Grendel, if we could find an antechoic chamber, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.439 for him, this never would have happened. But I wondered 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.360 if there are any straight up gods of silence. Well 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:27.080 there is, um Hippocrates, the Greek god of silence, and 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.159 he's thought to have evolved from a childhood variant of 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:35.480 the Egyptian god Horace. But ultimately Hippocrates is really more 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:40.160 about secrets than silence. So it's it's more about yeah, 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:45.600 you know, occult knowledge in many interpretations, as opposed to 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.320 just oh I need a nice meditative place to think. 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.119 I knew there was a group of monsters in Doctor 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.280 who called the Silence, but I looked at them up 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.720 and found that their name is somewhat misleading. Oh what 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.480 do they do? Uh? They engineer history and cause people 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.200 to have mass forgettings of events and stuff. But as 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.119 far as I know, they're not especially all that quiet. Uh, well, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.800 one one that is quiet. I have to confess, I'm 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.119 not a doctor expert. I don't know that much. What 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:16.080 did you ever watch Buffy? No? I actually didn't. Should 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.520 It's a lot of fun. You know, you kind of 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.000 have to plow through that first season, but but it's 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.359 it's all it's all fun after that, As I recall 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:29.280 but one episode in particular, one of the best episodes UH, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.760 is titled Hush, and it concerns a group of sort 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.720 of fairy tale ghoulish creatures called the Gentleman, and they 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.560 come to town to steal everyone's voices, leaving them unable 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.120 to scream when they come around and cut everyone's hearts out. 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:48.560 And then we finally learned that if you the reason 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.840 here is because loud noises such as those caused by 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.760 a screaming human, caused the creatures heads to explode. Now 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.000 that's funny. You should mention it, because one thing we 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.960 do know is that loud no noises can definitely cause 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.800 injury and damage to live in creatures. Oh yeah, I 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:06.920 mean there's a lot of data out there about about 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:11.480 noise pollution. UM. You know various uh, various humans, I 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.520 mean humans even, but also playing of non human animals. Uh. 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.440 The distraction alone can put many prey animals at an 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.840 increasing risk of predation. Uh. And the more pronounced effects 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.040 are generally found in marine mammals such as whales and 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:28.440 also in cephalopods. UH. The giant squid actually offers the 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.359 clearest example of this. Yeah. In the in the early 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:37.080 two thousand's low frequency sound pulse exercises that I believe 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.199 we're being utilized by the oil industry. Um. It was 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.600 like dynamite fishing for squid, right right, Yeah, essentially, so 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.400 they're they're blasting out these uh, these low frequency pulses 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.360 and then dead squid start up, start just popping up, 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:56.080 and they seem to have extensive bodily damage. And uh 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.359 when they looked closer, they found that like their mantles 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.840 were reduced pulp, there was bruised muscles, lesions in their statusists, 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.040 which are these fluid filled organs that rest behind the 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.320 creatures eyes that helped them maintain their ballots and position. 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.440 In a few years after this, Spanish marine biologists and 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:18.119 gal Gara investigated this further and found that low frequency 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:22.080 sound exposure intensities between a hundred fifty seven hundred seventy 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:27.000 five decibels and frequency range which is very loud. Should say, Yeah, 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.760 one of the things to drive home and throw some 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.600 throughout some comparisons here in a bit is that, yeah, underwater, uh, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.600 sounds can really get up there. Some of our loudest 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:42.000 noises on Earth they're occurring underwater. Um. But but anyway, 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.040 in this experiment, found that that there was a great 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.239 deal of UH statusist tissue damage, including the destruction of 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.960 tiny inverted hair like sensory structures in the cells that 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.160 helped the creatures maintain their balance. So this effectively crippled 0:21:56.200 --> 0:22:01.120 them and even the the the various salivods that they studied, 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.560 the ones that survived the experiment exhibited in some cases 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.119 visible holes in the tissues. So we're talking, you know, 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:13.239 legitimate kind Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean the worst. If 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.359 you're comparing places to be next to a bomb um, 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.080 the water is far worse. Like if someone throw If 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.720 you're at if your pool side and someone throws a grenade, 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.400 two grenades into your vicinity, one in the water, one 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.160 on the surface. Definitely stay on the surface, but also 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.360 avoid pool parties where grenades are being thrown around. How 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.080 do you keep getting invited to those I don't know? Um? 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:37.159 Like when I when I when they stopped inviting me, 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.040 And then I'm gonna I'm gonna feel bad. I'm gonna 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.520 look back on and say, why why don't they invite 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.439 me to these loud, noisy grenade parties? Uh? And I 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.119 wish I could go to sleep now Robert right before 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:50.479 we get back to the subject of silence. I know 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:52.480 everybody wants to know how do you make a human 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.199 head explode with sound? All right, so this is a 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:59.000 pretty cool There was a popular science article by seth 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.960 ET's horror at that came out a few years back, 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:04.199 and he looked into this. Include but we'll make sure 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:05.600 we include a link to this on the landing page 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.480