Scientists Say You Can Cancel the Noise but Keep Your Window Open

Researchers in Singapore developed a system that’s sort of like noise-canceling headphones for your whole apartment according to the NY Times.

Car alarms, jackhammers, a drunken argument and the rumble of the No. 7 train passing overhead. It is the glorious urban symphony that pours into a typical New York City apartment building day and night.

Sure, closing the window can help, but there goes your natural ventilation.

What if there were technology to cancel the offending clamor, like a pair of giant noise-canceling headphones for your apartment?

Researchers in Singapore have developed an apparatus that can be placed in a window to reduce incoming sound by 10 decibels.

“I grew up in Singapore,” Dr. Lam said in a Zoom interview from his apartment there. “It’s a small city with a lot of noise, so I have some motivation to solve this problem.”

Their results were published on Thursday in Scientific Reports.

Borrowing from the same technological principles used in noise-canceling headphones, the team expanded the concept to fit an entire room by placing 24 small speakers in a window. The speakers emit sound waves that correspond to the incoming racket and neutralize it — or, at least some of it.

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