The Many Benefits of Active Noise Cancellation

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One of the major problems that society faces today is noise pollution. Everywhere people go there is always something that is making a sound. It can be very loud such as a plane flying overhead, or it could be quiet like the fan of a computer. When a person is exposed to certain noises for extended periods of time it can not only damage their hearing, but also effect their mood, energy level, and productivity. As a result, there has been a push in the last fifty years or so to silence some of the annoying sounds that assault people’s ears everyday. While it might seem as simple as covering ones ears, the scientific community has been applying their knowledge in the hope of creating a more peaceful world.
All waves, whether it’s a wave in water or an acoustic wave, are made up of specific parts. They all have crests, highpoints, and troughs, low points. The distance between two of these crests or troughs is called the wavelength. The height of a crest is the amplitude, and the number of crests that pass a point in one second is the frequency. When two waves encounter each other they pass through one another, and the amplitudes of the waves combine. This is called interference. The first type of interference is called constructive interference. This is when two waves combine to form a wave that is larger than each individual wave. The second type of interference is when two waves combine to form a wave that is smaller than the original two. This is called destructive interference. If the two waves are identical in every aspect except that they are 180 degrees out of phase from one another, then the two waves will combine to form a wave that has been completely counterbalanced, where the amplitude is zero. In addition...

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