A Tedium article from earlier this year tells the interesting tale of James K. Buckwalter and his creation of the white noise machine. He conceived of the idea to try and help his wife, who had difficulty sleeping. “White noise works by reducing the difference between background sounds and a ‘peak’ sound, like a door slamming.” 

The piece has a lot to say about ambient music generally, “pink noise”, “brown noise” and how a 24-hour video of The Enterprise idling is some people’s go-to for chilling. Well, they may not know about the one on Saturday morning…