Methods for Investigating Noise, a collection of articles edited by Prof. S. N. Rzhevkin, “Advances in Physics” series, GTTI, Moscow–Leningrad, 1933, 120 pp., price 3 rubles 50 kopecks.

The problem of the quantitative and qualitative investigation of noise has in recent years acquired such great significance that today one may even speak of the emergence of a new branch of applied acoustics—the technology of combating noise. The development of this new branch of technology was stimulated by the rapid growth of urban transport; indeed, the initiative in investigating noises and combating them belongs to New York, the noisiest city in the world. We note that, according to G. Kez, the noisiest place on earth is the intersection of 6th Avenue and 34th Street, where a tiger’s roar attracts no passers-by.

The physical problems confronting the technology of noise control are quite varied. The first stage is, of course, the development of a uniform method for measuring noise, which deserves special attention if only because the chief interest here is the subjective effect produced by noise on our ear. The next task consists in the comparative investigation of various noises, both with regard to their intensity and with regard to their spectral composition, with indispensable allowance for the psycho-physiological effect produced by the noise. Finally, the third task, which constitutes the central link of the “noise problem,” consists in studying methods for eliminating noise or, at least, reducing its intensity to an acceptable level.

All these tasks are covered quite fully in the collection under review, whose editor has selected from the scientific and technical periodical literature a number of studies—

research and survey works relating to the particular questions listed above. The collection opens with an introductory article by the editor, Prof. S. N. Rzhevkin, which acquaints the reader with the nature of the problem and gives a well-known assessment of the material selected for the collection. The methodology of noise measurement is covered by E. Free’s article, which gives a critical description of three methods: the audiometric method, the method of masking the sound of a tuning fork, and, finally, the objective method using an acoustimeter. In the section “Results of Noise Surveys” are included works by R. Holta (outdoor noises), R. Tucker (noises in buildings), and J. Parkinson (transport noises and methods for reducing noises). This is followed by articles by G. Bacot and S. Kagan, describing the results of Berlin measurements of street noises and noises in buildings. The physiological action of noises is the subject of a paper by E. Smith and D. Laird. Analysis of noises by the probing-tone method is considered in M. Grotmacher’s work. Finally, papers by E. Lübcke and Gerdien, G. Paul and F. Trendelenburg are devoted to certain special questions (underwater noises and noise from shocks).

The selection of material for the collection has been made with great care; the appearance of the collection is to be welcomed in every way, all the more so since the “noise problem” still does not figure in the work plans of our research institutions, despite its undoubted urgency under conditions of the rapid pace of urban construction.

V. Furduev