Why are people talking about the speed of sound in relation to this issue; I thought that vocal pitch changed in these circumstances because the vibration of the vocal chords was less(in the case of lighter gases) or more impeded by the density/viscosity/resistance of the gas.
The speed of sound is greater in water than it is in air, but if you could breathe water without drowning, your vocal pitch would be vastly reduced, not increased, because they simply cannot resonate so fast in a denser medium.
Be careful with heavy gases and your lungs, kids. There have been a couple of deaths from ‘huffing’ in the last year, and I believe the cause of death was the collection of heavy inert gas in the lungs that prevented the idiots from breathing in air and they asphyxiated.
I figured that it would go without saying that it was inhaled in its gaseous state, not liquid. Even a bunch of dumb teenagers working at the theater could see that the gum freezing stuff really wouldn’t be good inside one’s lungs.
It has been awhile, but I recall that the cans had a dip tube inside that would bring up the liquid. It wasn’t exactly like liquid nitrogen, but it was quite chilly. All one needed to do was invert the can so that the dip tube was out of the liquid. I don’t recall anyone ever putting their lips on the can either: we would spray it in the air and breathe a few inches away.
An engineering prof. gave a demonstration in one of my linguistics classes where he sang a note, inhaled helium, sang the same note, exhaled the helium and inhaled a heavy gas (I forget what) and sang the same note again. Let’s just say the note was 440 Hz. Each time it was still the same A that he was singing, but it sounded very different. Air sounded normal, Helium sounded like a chipmunk, and the heavy gas sounded like Darth Vader, but it was still 440 Hz. He was trying to make some point, but I don’t remember exactly. I remember that the human voice singing a note is not just one frequency. If you look at a spectrum of someone singing 440 Hz, with y=freqency, x=time, and shading denotes intensity, you will see periodic bands (formants) moving up in frequency. I found a graph on this page (the “waveform envelope”) that looks like what I remember. I believe that this prof. was trying to show that it’s merely the intensity of the formants that changes in the different gaseous medium, and not the actual pitch. Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about (because I’m not really sure that I do)?
I knew a fellow who made this, at the last point I knew him, “his drug of choice”. He was one f&cked up dude. It may have been permanent. And it definitely made his voice deeper.
Helium doesn’t raise the pitch of your voice: as Ruken says, you would still sing eg. Happy Birthday in tune with everyone else. This is because the pitch (fundamental frequency) is determined by the vibrations of your vocal cords, which the medium doesn’t change appreciably. (And no, nothing ‘constricts’ either).
What does change is the frequency of the resonances of the column of gas above it. A lighter gas accentuates higher frequency components relative to the fundamental (the formants), which changes the ‘tone’ or timbre but not the pitch.
Is there a noticeable difference between air of differing densities? For example, does a given speaker sound exactly the same in the high Andes Mountains as he does in Death Valley?
There is very little change with altitude or pressure. The decreased pressure almost exactly compensates for the decreased density. (It would be exact for an “ideal gas”, but is approximate for real gasses, more approximate the larger the molicules) Speed of sound is MUCH more dependant on temperature than on pressure…so much so that aircraft instruments that indicate mach number do not compensate for static pressure, but do compensate for temperature. (at least that was the case in the late 80’s when I was in that buisiness)
There was a science show in our area once, and the scientist did this. He first made his voice go very high with helium, then very low with another gas.
He also held a large piece of wood and electrocuted himself, the wood catching on fire but himself remaining ok.
Yes inhaling freon is a bad idea.
I think it was around the early 1970’s, one of the popular items sold in those Swank™ “executive toy” display cases, was a glass “chiller”. (God forbid you’d have to drink your favorite alcoholic beverage out of a warm glass.) Anyway, a drinking glass would be inverted over this device and the rim of the glass would depress a button and freon would shoot into the glass, instantly chilling it.
Needless to say, some younger folks would get hold of these things (either for getting high or just messing around) and they would inhale the freon by depressing that button and putting their nose and mouth very close to the freon “jet”. This resulted in several deaths. (It is not an Urban Legend).
No doubt, that is the reason why we haven’t seen these “freon” shooters for the last couple of decades. Unfortunately we have had to revert to the “barbaric” practice of drinking alcohol from a warm glass. :rolleyes: