英语阅读.（3-1）The people who lived in Rome 2,000 years ago were

英语阅读.（3-1）
The people who lived in Rome 2,000 years ago were already complaining about the noise in their city.They couldn’t sleep,they said,with all that traffic in the streets.For them,noise was merely a disturbance.For us it has become a real danger.We know that the sounds of an average city are loud enough to cause serious damage to the inhabitants’ hearing—in the United States,one person out of twenty has suffered some hearing loss.And all over the world the situation is getting worse all the time,since noise increases with the population.
Noise has also increased enormously in the 20th century with the development of machines.We live surrounded by loud planes,trucks,motorcycles,buses,electric tools,radios,pneumatic drills—that roar day and night up to 90 or 100 decibels.The decibel is the unit used to measure the loudness of sound.A normal conversation reaches 55 decibels,thunder roars at 70 decibels,a jet plane goes to 100 decibels and more,and an ordinary subway train,approaching the station,can be twice as loud as the loudest jet.The average discotheque reaches around 118 decibels.At 120 decibels the ear stops hearing sound,and pain starts.
Unfortunately,the human ear does not judge clearly the degree of loudness of a noise.A sound ten decibels louder than another one is felt as twice as loud,when in fact it is ten times louder.Since we cannot measure the increase or decrease of noise,we never know to what danger we are exposed.
But it is not only our hearing that is threatened.It has been established that loud noises,over a period of time,cause loss of sleep,anger,and many mental and physical problems.Such problems have been observed among factory workers,prisoners in large prisons,and people who drive heavy trucks,operate pneumatic drills,or go frequently to rock-and-roll concerts.
Is there a solution?We do know how to build quieter machines,if the public wants them.But merchants point out that people who buy motorcycles,for instance,prefer the loudest ones because they sound more powerful.Some cities are trying to enforce more strictly their anti-noise laws.In Memphis automobilists are fined fifty dollars for honking; they may lose their right to drive if they do it again.People who carry noisy radios in public places may lose them if they are caught with them.
Actually,it will take everybody’s efforts to keep city noises from increasing.Even so,say the experts,in twenty years the cities will be twice as loud as they are today because of the growth of the population.The inhabitants will have to shout to be heard at the dinner table.Unless,of course,they have all become completely deaf.

Roge