The room that isn't there

Via Science Fair:

As part of [Microsoft's] development of new audio technology for better videoconferencing, they've got a room in Building 99 (their pretty new international HQ for research) that is designed to dampen sound -- no, drown sound. In fact, the anechoic chamber stifles all sound -- no echo from the walls, no echo from the ceiling, no echo even from the ground; voices drop like rocks even from a few feet away.

As engineer Ivan Tashev put it, "this is a room that simulates absence of room." Standing on a metal grid suspended above pointy lined-wedges on a floor that is in turn mounted on neoprene mounted on concrete? He's right: Is not like standing in a room.

Even in the quietest places outdoors, our ears still pick up a bit of echo from the ground, which helps us to stay oriented. A few seconds of perfect silence and my ears started popping; a few more minutes and the brain circuitry that normally cancels out the sound of one's own heartbeat would have been overridden as the brain searched for SOMETHING to listen to; 15-20 minutes and the hallucinations would have kicked in.