The sound of silence can be heard?! John Cage's controversial work 4'33'' is probably worth another 'listen' – Scotsman comment

New research suggests that the sound of nothing ‘is also something you can hear’

Where artists lead, are scientists eventually bound to follow? While you may have scorned such works as 4’33’’ (aka four minutes, 33 seconds) – a piece, in three movements, by experimental composer John Cage in which the orchestra sits in silence, or at least tries to – The Scotsman naturally always knew that this was a work of genius. And the 152,814 views for a 2013 performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra suggest at least some people agree.

Now it seems scientists may have actually proved we can ‘hear’ silence. Researchers tested sound illusions on nearly 1,000 people in which the sounds were replaced by silences. The results showed that people were fooled by the silence illusions in the same way as the sound ones, a sign that our brains may process both noise and its absence in the same way. “Surprisingly,” said one of the scientists, “what our work suggests is that nothing is also something you can hear.”

You may say that’s ________ but we think it’s actually rather ________. We feel confident that you’ll know exactly what we mean.