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The Sciences Library Friedman Study Center opened a 1500 decibel section for students who wish to practice instruments, set off mortar grenades into packs of howling wolves at the center of the sun, or study in groups larger than five.
10^1320 times louder than what would cause irreversible hearing tissue damage and 10^1306 times louder than the loudest sound possible, the sheer noise of the 1500 decibel zone has forced most students to develop clever strategies to concentrate in the presence of sounds well beyond the limits of physics.
"I usually just bring noise-cancelling headphones," said Gerry Martin '12 as the powerful vibrations hurled him violently from wall to wall, "or coffee."
"Tea works, too," he added as sound waves surpassing those of the big bang shattered his skeleton.
Upon entering the study center, students are first greeted with an inspirational quote by donors Susan P. and Richard A. Friedman and then are immediately vaporized by the unfathomable pressure of the noise, which scientists speculate may be quite loud.
"After a while, I don't even notice the sound," said Edmund Baker '11 as the very fabric of space-time ripped apart, obliterating the Earth.
"I was skeptical at first, but eventually I got used to it," said Harry Mandlebrot '13, before imploding into a smoldering carcass of antimatter.
"And now I can't study anywhere else," he added.
Some students have complained, however, that there are not enough couches in the 1500 decibel section, likely because most were annihilated along with the rest of the universe by a towering cloud of sonic entropy. The remaining couches were praised for their comfort.
"It's a little chilly in here sometimes," said Allen Forrester '14, as the cosmic dynamo expunged his very existence from the grip of reality and launched it into the cold oblivion of infinite-dimensional space.
"But the water fountain is pretty good," he added. "Strong stream, pretty cold, doesn't taste like lead."
A suggestive change in carpet pattern separates the 1500 decibel section from the even more recent 15,000 decibel section, which some students complain distracts them with cataclysmic waveforms that eradicate the very concepts they are trying to study.
"Do you know how hard it is to read about gravitational systems when the room I'm sitting in keeps unraveling and nullifying the laws of gravity itself?" said David Smelth '14 as the vibrating superstrings comprising his fundamental quarks snapped under the impossible weight of a hundred trillion trillion reverberating supernovas. "Plus I left my glasses in Keeney."
In parallel with the SciLi renovations, Brown has announced plans to introduce an additional study room at the Rockefeller Library, the Absolute Zero Room. It will accommodate students who cannot work in the presence of any atomic vibration, and will be slightly warmer than most current Rock study spaces.
