A single ringing phone doubles the acoustic energy of a quiet library

Evidence

In the stacks of books I note the quietest reading yet: 40 dBA. In the Reading Room, where only two of 17 people are holding books (the others peruse their laptop screens), the meter registers 44 dBA. Then a phone rings. From 30 feet away, my meter jumps to 58 dBA, equivalent to the snap of a cedar campfire in the dead of night. — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 360

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 360
• XREF: connects to: A modest decibel jump like ambient-to-bus represents a near-8000-fold sound increase — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 97

Broader Connections

• A modest decibel jump like ambient-to-bus represents a near-8000-fold sound increase #expands (0.40) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 97