Crafting research labs and concert halls to produce exactly the right acoustics

Crafting research labs and concert halls to produce exactly the right acoustics



Acoustician Jukka Pätynen stands in an anechoic space, designed so that no surface reflects sound. Hard foam wedges cover the walls to absorb any incident sound; the room itself is a box within a box, with the inner space floating on elastic materials for vibration isolation. “On the decibel scale, 0 dB is the lower limit of human hearing,” says Pätynen. “Our calculations suggest that the actual background noise [in the room] could be as quiet as −10 dB.” (Nature | 2 min read) (Jarkko Mikkonen for Nature)