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In acoustics
Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of sound, ultrasound and infrasound . A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician....
 and specifically in acoustical engineering
Acoustical engineering

Acoustical engineering is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and oscillation. It is closely related to acoustics, the science of sound and vibration....
, background noise is any sound
Sound

Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a threshold of hearing to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations....
 other than the sound being monitored. Background noise
Noise

In common use, the word noise means unwanted sound or noise pollution. In electronics noise can refer to the electronic signal corresponding to acoustic noise or the electronic signal corresponding to the noise commonly seen as 'Noise ' on a degraded television or video image....
 is a form of noise pollution
Noise pollution

Noise pollution is displeasing human-, animal- or machine-created sound that disrupts the activity or balance of human or animal life. A common form of noise pollution is from transportation, principally motor vehicles....
 or interference
Interference

In physics, interference is the addition of two or more waves that result in a new wave pattern.Interference usually refers to the interaction of waves which are correlated or Coherence with each other, either because they come from the same source or because they have the same or nearly the same frequency....
. Background noise is an important concept in setting noise regulation
Noise regulation

Noise regulation includes statutes or guidelines relating to sound transmission established by national, state or provincial and municipal levels of government....
s.

Examples of background noises are environmental noises such as waves
WAVES

The WAVES were a World War II-era division of the United States Navy that consisted entirely of women. The name of this group is an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" ; the word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of the war and that at the end of the war the women...
, traffic
Traffic

Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel....
 noise, alarms, people talking, bioacoustic noise
Bioacoustics

Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic medium, and reception in animals, including humans....
 from animals or birds and mechanical noise from devices such as refrigerator
Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a cooling appliance comprising a thermal insulation compartment and a heat pump - a mechanism to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient....
s or air conditioning
Air conditioning

An air conditioner is an appliance, system, or Mechanism designed to extract heat from an area via a refrigeration cycle. In construction, a complete system of heating, Ventilation , and air conditioning is referred to as "HVAC." Its purpose, in a building or an automobile, is to provide comfort during either hot or cold...
, power supplies or motors
Electric motor

An electric motor uses electrical energy to produce mechanical energy, nearly always by the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors....
.

The prevention or reduction of background noise is important in the field of active noise control
Active noise control

Active noise control is a method for reducing unwanted sound....
.






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In acoustics
Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of sound, ultrasound and infrasound . A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician....
 and specifically in acoustical engineering
Acoustical engineering

Acoustical engineering is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and oscillation. It is closely related to acoustics, the science of sound and vibration....
, background noise is any sound
Sound

Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a threshold of hearing to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations....
 other than the sound being monitored. Background noise
Noise

In common use, the word noise means unwanted sound or noise pollution. In electronics noise can refer to the electronic signal corresponding to acoustic noise or the electronic signal corresponding to the noise commonly seen as 'Noise ' on a degraded television or video image....
 is a form of noise pollution
Noise pollution

Noise pollution is displeasing human-, animal- or machine-created sound that disrupts the activity or balance of human or animal life. A common form of noise pollution is from transportation, principally motor vehicles....
 or interference
Interference

In physics, interference is the addition of two or more waves that result in a new wave pattern.Interference usually refers to the interaction of waves which are correlated or Coherence with each other, either because they come from the same source or because they have the same or nearly the same frequency....
. Background noise is an important concept in setting noise regulation
Noise regulation

Noise regulation includes statutes or guidelines relating to sound transmission established by national, state or provincial and municipal levels of government....
s.

Examples of background noises are environmental noises such as waves
WAVES

The WAVES were a World War II-era division of the United States Navy that consisted entirely of women. The name of this group is an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" ; the word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of the war and that at the end of the war the women...
, traffic
Traffic

Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel....
 noise, alarms, people talking, bioacoustic noise
Bioacoustics

Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic medium, and reception in animals, including humans....
 from animals or birds and mechanical noise from devices such as refrigerator
Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a cooling appliance comprising a thermal insulation compartment and a heat pump - a mechanism to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient....
s or air conditioning
Air conditioning

An air conditioner is an appliance, system, or Mechanism designed to extract heat from an area via a refrigeration cycle. In construction, a complete system of heating, Ventilation , and air conditioning is referred to as "HVAC." Its purpose, in a building or an automobile, is to provide comfort during either hot or cold...
, power supplies or motors
Electric motor

An electric motor uses electrical energy to produce mechanical energy, nearly always by the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors....
.

The prevention or reduction of background noise is important in the field of active noise control
Active noise control

Active noise control is a method for reducing unwanted sound....
. It is an important consideration with the use of ultrasound
Ultrasound

Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing . Although this limit varies from person to person, it is approximately 20 Hertz in healthy, young adults and thus, 20 kHz serves as a useful lower limit in describing ultrasound....
 (e.g. for medical diagnosis or imaging), sonar
Sonar

Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigation, communicate with or detect other vessels. There are two kinds of sonar: active and passive....
 and sound reproduction.

In astronomy
Astronomy

Astronomy is the science of Astronomical object and Phenomenon that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere . It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the physical cosmology....
, background noise or cosmic background radiation, is electromagnetic radiation
Electromagnetic radiation

Electromagnetic radiation takes the form of wave propagation waves in a vacuum or in matter. EM radiation has an electric field and magnetic field component which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and to the direction of energy Wave propagation....
 from the sky with no discernible source.

In information architecture
Information Architecture

Information architecture is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems....
, irrelevant, duplicate or incorrect information may be called background noise.

In physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
 and telecommunication
Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the assisted Transmission of Signal over a distance for the purpose of communication. In earlier times, this may have involved the use of smoke signals, Drum , Semaphore line, flag signals or heliograph....
, background signal noise
Signal noise

In science, and especially in physics and telecommunication, noise is fluctuations in and the addition of external factors to the stream of target information being received at a detector....
 can be detrimental or in some cases beneficial. The study of avoiding, reducing or using signal noise is information theory
Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Historically, information theory was developed by Claude E....
.

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