Inside a six-walled wedge-foam chamber on Microsoft's Redmond campus, the background sound is so far below human hearing that visitors start to perceive the grinding of their own joints, the rush of blood in their ears, and eventually a faint ringing that turns out to be the firing of their own nerves. (opens in new tab)

Building 87 on Microsoft’s Redmond campus contains a room that registers a background sound level of negative 20.35 decibels, a measurement so far below the threshold of human hearing that the air molecules themselves are barely loud enough to be detected. The chamber holds the Guinness World Record for the quietest place on Earth, and […]