Prof. Derek P. Royal
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White Noise
According to Encyclopædia Britannica:
in music, the effect of the complete range of audible sound-wave frequencies heard simultaneously, analogous to white light, which contains all the frequencies of the light spectrum. The sound of cymbals and snare drums has white-noise characteristics. Electronically synthesized white noise can be filtered so as to produce combinations of frequencies not obtainable on traditional musical instruments; or the white noise itself may be used as an element of music.
White noise is aperiodic sound (that is, its wave pattern is not uniform). Its constituent frequencies are of random amplitude and occur at random intervals.
According to Merriam-Webster:
heterogeneous mixture of sound waves extending over a wide frequency range
According to the Church Audio & Acoustics Glossary:
An audio signal with equal energy at all frequencies. Has more energy at higher frequencies than pink noise from the way octaves are related to frequencies.
According to the Guitar Nine Glossary of Terms:
A mixture of all frequencies
between
According to the glossary of Extragalactic Astronomy:
Completely random and uncorrelated noise, with equal power at all frequencies.
According to
White noise is noise
with autocorrelation function zero everywhere but at
According to the Glossary of Terms in Parapsychology:
A hiss-like sound, formed by combining all audible frequencies. See also ganzfeld. (Ganzfeld: A technique for investigating ESP in which the person experiences an absence of patterned stimulation. This generally involves the subject wearing halved table-tennis balls over the eyes while listening to hiss [white noise] through headphones.)
According to the Bloomberg Financial Glossary:
The audio equivalent of Brownian motion [random motion of small objects as a result of intermolecular collisions]. Sounds that are unrelated and sound like a hiss. The video equivalent of white noise is "snow" in television reception.
According to the Microsoft Bookshelf Computer and Internet Dictionary:
Noise that contains components at all frequencies, at least within the frequency band of interest. It is called "white" by analogy to white light, which contains light at all the visible frequencies. In the audible spectrum, white noise is a hiss or a roar, such as that produced when a television set is tuned to a channel over which no station is broadcasting.