Noise is a common experience in the contemporary world. Din from traffic, construction sites, factories, and neighbors bother urban residents. Radio listeners, television watchers, and mobile phone users have to endure statics and fading from time to time. Music lovers have debated whether jazz, atonal composition, rock and roll, rap, and abstract expressionism are art or nuisance. Scientists try to retrieve genuine signals from fluctuating data. Engineers design devices, software, or systems to filter out disturbance to the normal functioning of technology. Mathematicians and physicists examine randomness. Traders and economists attempt to predict markets’ future trends beneath highly irregular commodity prices. Decision makers cope with all kinds of uncertainty. No matter whether we understand the term as annoying sound or random fluctuations, we simply cannot live a life without encountering noise.
Despite its ubiquity in modern times, noise has rarely been a focus of historical studies of recent science and...