# Holding a seashell (or any resonant chamber) against your ear in an anaccoustic chamber **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 5, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holding-a-seashell-or-any-resonant-chamber-against-your-ear-in-an-anaccoustic-chamber/719310 "2015-05-05T12:55:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bender\_Bending\_Rodriguez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/74df32/32.png) [@Bender\_Bending\_Rodriguez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bender_Bending_Rodriguez)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holding-a-seashell-or-any-resonant-chamber-against-your-ear-in-an-anaccoustic-chamber/719310/1 "2015-05-05T12:55:56Z")
When you hold a seashell against your ear, the hum/ buzz/ noise you hear is the resonating background noise, right? So what happens if you do this in a perfect or near perfect noiseless environment like an anaccoustic chamber? Do you hear nothing? Or will the minute vibrations transferred to the shell from your hand create some mixed frequency noise? Or will you hear the fundamental resonant frequency of the particular chamber? What if the shell is mounted on a rock solid mount (with no chance of vibrations being transferred to the shell)? ---
**Author:** ![Bender\_Bending\_Rodriguez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/74df32/32.png) [@Bender\_Bending\_Rodriguez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bender_Bending_Rodriguez)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holding-a-seashell-or-any-resonant-chamber-against-your-ear-in-an-anaccoustic-chamber/719310/2 "2015-05-05T13:04:14Z")
Oops, I meant anechoic chamber. > **[Anechoic chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber)** > > An anechoic chamber (an-echoic meaning "non-reflective") is a room designed to stop reflections of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also often isolated from energy entering from their surroundings. This combination means that a person or detector exclusively hears direct sounds (no reflected sounds), in effect simulating being outside in a free field. > Anechoic chambers, a term coined by American acoustics expert Leo Beranek, were initially exclusively used to refer to acoustic ... ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holding-a-seashell-or-any-resonant-chamber-against-your-ear-in-an-anaccoustic-chamber/719310/3 "2015-05-06T15:47:43Z")
AFAIK, the noise is, in part, your own blood flowing; so an anechoic chamber wouldn’t make it go away, if anything it would become even more noticeable. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holding-a-seashell-or-any-resonant-chamber-against-your-ear-in-an-anaccoustic-chamber/719310/4 "2015-05-06T21:26:14Z")
She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell she brought. To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear. - Listen! she bade him. Under Tom Kernan’s ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow. Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband took him by the throat. Scoundrel, said he, you’ll sing no more lovesongs. He did, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. Cowley lay back. Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful. She held it to her own. And through the sifted light pale gold in contrast glided. To hear. Tap. Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for other, hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar. Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened. Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside. Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream first make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn’t forget. Fever near her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with seaweed. Why do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks the mouth, why? Her eyes over the sheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. No admittance except on business. The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in the ear sometimes. Well, it’s a sea. Corpuscle islands.