Screaming Babies, Noise Canceling, and You
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In April 1978, MIT professor Amar Bose was flying home to Boston from Switzerland. But when he tried to listen to music through the airline’s headphones, he couldn’t hear a darned thing. He spent the rest of the flight doing acoustical math—and sketching out an idea for headphones that literally subtracted background noise from what you hear. Today, noise-canceling headphones are everywhere. But the revolution began with Amar Bose’s airplane sketches—and the 22-year, $50 million journey that led them to the ears on your head.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Last time I walked down an airplane aisle, I counted how many people were wearing noise-canceling |
| 0:07.8 | headphones. |
| 0:08.8 | I mean, it was about a quarter of the passengers. |
| 0:12.1 | These are headphones that literally subtract the noise around you from whatever music or |
| 0:17.5 | movie you're listening to. |
| 0:19.4 | But inventing this technology was incredibly difficult. |
| 0:22.9 | You know, in a perfect world, we'd glue something to your eardrum and that would be fantastic, |
| 0:27.6 | but nobody would sign it up for that. |
| 0:29.2 | In the year 2000, Bose finally cracked the problem and brought consumer noise-canceling headphones |
| 0:35.9 | to the world. |
| 0:37.2 | It had only taken 22 years and $50 million. |
| 0:42.6 | I'm David Pogue, and this is Unsung Science. |
| 0:51.7 | You're listening Add Free on Wondering Plus. |
| 0:55.2 | A few things are more devastating than a loved one that's gone missing. |
| 0:59.0 | From Wondery, the vanished is a podcast where host Marissa Jones tells stories of missing |
| 1:04.3 | persons that have gone overlooked. |
| 1:06.6 | Listen to the vanished podcast wherever you get your podcast, or you can listen Add Free |
| 1:10.9 | by joining Wondering Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. |
| 1:16.2 | Season 2, Episode 18. |
| 1:18.8 | Screaming Babies, Noise-canceling, and You. |
| 1:23.9 | In April 1978, MIT professor Amar Bose was flying back home to Boston from a business meeting |
| 1:31.7 | in Switzerland. |
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