The noisiest thing in the world

[Drewster]

"berk" is one of the nicer names we have for him

"berk" was intended in the Cockney Rhyming Slang interpretation....

[Pogle]

When I was 19, I went to spend Christmas and New Year with my then best friend, at her parents house in a small village in the Appinines.

We went for a long walk up the nearest mountain with a bottle of home produced red wine. There were wild boar in the area and we wanted to try and see one, so we walked to the top of the mountain/hill and sat down to drink the wine. It was idyllic, it was winter, there was a smattering of snow and not a sign of civilization anywhere around us, no roads, no houses, no people.
The view was amazing but the thing which has stuck with me to this day is the silence, it really was DEAFENING, I have never heard anything as loud ever since.

[TimberWolf]

The view was amazing but the thing which has stuck with me to this day is the silence, it really was DEAFENING, I have never heard anything as loud ever since.

I have a feeling I would hear a very quiet and high pitched sound if I were in a really quiet place. Nothing like that around here to test it though. I believe most people do hear something in a very quiet place:

Heller and Bergman (1953) conducted a study of 80 tinnitus-free university students placed in an anechoic chamber and found that 93% reported hearing a buzzing, pulsing or whistling sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

I want to know how long the shortest sound ever heard was.

[Board Game Geek]

One of my pet hates is people who bring babies into the office.

Does that include pre-babies ?

Eg, folks bringing in sperm and egg sacs ?