As more people live closer together, and as they use machines to produce leisure, they find that their leisure, and even their working hours, become spoilt by a by-product of their machines — namely, noise. Noise is nowadays in the news; it has acquired political status, and public opinion is demanding, more and more insistently, that something must be done about it.
随着人们居住得越来越近，随着他们使用机器来娱乐，他们发现他们的休闲时间，甚至工作时间，被机器的一种副产品——即噪音，给毁了。如今噪音一直是新闻焦点；它获得了政治地位，而且公众舆论也越来越坚持认为必须做些什么来应对它。
To control noise is to demand much self-discipline (annoyance arises often from lack of common courtesy), a sense of proportion (there is usually a conflict of interest if a noise is to be stopped), the expenditure of money (and it is far more economical to do this early rather that late), and finally, technical knowledge.
要控制噪音需要多自律（烦扰多源于缺乏公德），一种协调意识（如果要制止噪音，通常会引起利益冲突），钱财花费（早期处理比后期处理要经济得多），最后还有科技知识。
Technical difficulties often arise from the subjective-objective nature of the problem. You can define the excessive speed of a motor-car in terms of a pointer reading on a speedometer. But can you define excessive noise in the same way? You find that with any existing simple “noise-meter”, vehicles which are judged to be equally noisy may show considerable difference on the meter.
技术难点往往来自于问题本身的主客观性质。你可以根据计速仪所读的一个数值来确定一辆汽车的超速。但是你可以用相同的方法来确定超量的噪音吗？你会发现已存在的任何一个简单的计声仪，那些被判断为噪音量相同的车辆，在计声仪上会显示出相当明显的差异。
Though the ideal cure for noise is to stop it at its source, this may in many cases be impossible. The next remedy is to absorb it on its way to the ear.
虽然最理想的根治噪音的方法是在根源上阻止，但是这在很多情况下是不可行的。那么，其次的补救办法就是在传播到耳朵的路上吸收掉。
Domestic noises may perhaps be controlled by forethought and courtesy, and industrial noises by good planning and technical improvement. But if we are going to allow fast motor-cycles and heavy diesel lorries to pass continuously trough residential and business districts, the community must decide on the control it needs to exercise, for in the long run it has got to pay for it. And if a nation is to take part in modern air transport, it must enter into international agreements on the noise control measures it will impose at its airports — and here the cost of any real control is to be measured in millions of dollars.
通过事先措施和道德约束，家里的噪声可以得到控制，而工业噪声的控制则需要不错的方案和科技提高。但是，如果我们允许高速摩托车和重型内燃机卡车继续不断地经过居民区和商业区，社区需要下决心实施控制措施，因为长期以往必定要为此买单。而且如果一个国家参与到现代化空中运输，这就需要参与到关于噪音控制计量的国际协议，需要强制其飞机场加以实施——而在这个问题上，任何一个实际控制成本都将以百万美元计算。