How noise cancellation technology works (without the annoying math)

Ever wondered how you’re wearing a modern headphone or EarPod, and suddenly the noise/sounds around you reduce drastically ?Its not magic, it’s a cool technology called noise cancellation and I’ll explain how it works;

So there are two ways this can be achieved;

• Passive noise cancellation
• Active Noise cancellation (ANC) Passive noise cancellation is simply the use of materials to partially block sound waves, as simple as that. However this method is not very effective, there is a more effective means;
  • Active Noise cancellation (ANC) works in a more advanced way, applies methodologies on physics, let me explain properly; Sound is a wave, and that wave has a few properties, such as frequency and direction. ANC exploits this property by first of all analyzing the incoming sound in real time, then process it, and produce an inverse of that sound, in lame terms: If sound go forward, noise cancellation reproduces that same sound but backwards, this causes something called destructive interference. Then noise is partially cancelled. IMPORTANT : The end product of the destructive interference is not 2 different sounds at thesame time, it is one sound produced from the collision of the two opposite sounds.

As easy as that :)