What gas changes voice besides helium. Question to the scientist: Why does helium distort the voice? A balloon, a voice... what do you have in common

Helium is the second most abundant chemical element in the universe after hydrogen. However, among fans of "joking" this inert gas, of course, holds the palm. And no wonder: one puff of helium - and it's time for you to voice Donald Duck.

Helium belongs to the group of inert gases, which means it has a certain degree of narcotic effect. Did not know? It's OK! According to this indicator, helium is inferior to all other noble gases, so that a person who decides to inhale it will not experience addiction. But it is very possible to amuse the company with the help of this gas.

Everyone is wondering why the voice changes from helium. It's simple: when ingested, the gas acts on the vocal cords, causing them to contract. The result is a thin "mouse" voice. And to be precise, it's all about the nature and properties of the voice.

Helium is by far the world's most "fun" inert gas

The human voice is sound waves created by the vibration of the vocal cords. Helium is denser than the air we normally breathe. The timbre of the voice directly depends on this very density, and the vibration frequency of the ligaments determines the pitch of the sound emitted. Now it’s clear why the voice changes from helium?

A balloon, a voice... what do they have in common?

History has not preserved the name of the first person who inhaled helium and spoke in a funny voice. But his faithful followers do not let the tradition fade away and continue to amuse everyone around. All you need is a balloon, a voice and a little imagination.

A helium balloon will spice up even the most boring party.

Entertainment is safe enough if not abused. Helium is an inert gas, odorless and tasteless. Therefore, a person who has inhaled helium can only be recognized by his voice. And that's why helium changes its voice at the moment of "recognition" no one will think - this idea is too hilarious!

Probably each of us knows that if you inhale a little gas from a helium balloon, then the voice will become thinner and will sound funny. But not everyone will be able to answer why the voice changes from helium when the gas is inhaled ?! And all because helium has a much lower density. The vocal cords vibrate elastically in the air stream. And since the density of helium is seven times lower than air, it means that it loads the ligaments much less, which is why they vibrate with a higher frequency and the voice becomes squeaky and funny.
Now let's take a closer look at how and why helium changes the voice. The mechanics of the human voice is an amazing biological phenomenon. It all starts with the fact that air enters the lungs through the larynx and then leaves the lungs in the form of carbon dioxide again through the larynx. This can be manipulated in several ways. For example, you can release the air, and all that is heard by others is the sound of breathing. If you need to say something, the muscles of the larynx and vocal cords are included in the matter.

The air in your lungs pushes your diaphragm to relax. It then travels through your windpipe and into a small opening that has two folds of skin (vocal cords) on either side of it, in the shape of a V. As the muscles that control your voice tense and relax, they create the vibration of the cords. When these cords vibrate, they release pulses of air. Tension in these muscles creates differences in frequency. The higher the voltage, the higher the frequency and therefore the higher the voice. This frequency is measured in hertz (well, that is, how many times per second it repeats). For example, almost all human speech sounds usually range from 200 hertz to 8000 hertz.

After exiting the vocal window, the air moves into an area of ​​your mouth that can be informally called your vocal tract. As you manipulate your tongue, jaw, and lips, you can change the resonant frequencies created by your vocal connections, producing many different speech sounds.
The sound created by air flowing at different frequencies and resonances creates our voice. Another factor affecting stride is the thickness of the vocal cords. The thicker the folds of the skin, the deeper the voice, and vice versa - the thinner the folds and the thinner the voice.

So now let's talk about the air that comes out of your lungs. The number of molecules in a fixed volume of gas, like the volume of air in the lungs, does not change with the type of gas (assuming the pressure is low enough). As long as the temperature and pressure are the same, it doesn't matter if it's helium or air, the number of molecules is the same. The mass of these molecules is then measured by atomic weight. Atomic weight is a dimensionless physical quantity (which is why it works so well for a gas that doesn't necessarily have a given size). This is the ratio of the average mass of an element's atoms compared to 1/12 of the mass of a carbon-12 atom. All this basically means is that the higher the number, the heavier the gas.
Helium has an atomic weight of 4.002602. Air, which is approximately 80% nitrogen, has different characteristics depending on environment. Because of this, its actual atomic weight cannot be accurately determined. However, it is typically about seven times heavier than helium.

So, why does the voice change from helium when the gas is inhaled?! The answer lies in how sound waves travel through a given gas. The denser or heavier the gas, the slower the sound wave will be. Helium is much lighter than air. Then the speed of the sound wave through helium will be much higher. So when you inhale helium and use it as a source of perceived sound, you simply increase the speed or frequency of your voice. You don't change the pitch, as your vocal cords vibrate at the same rate as when you use air. You also do not change the configuration of your vocal tract. So while the fundamental frequency of the chords remains the same, the frequency of the sound heard by others increases due to the wave traveling through helium much faster than through air.

There is a trick that can be seen many times on YouTube videos. These videos can be found if you search for the words "helium" and "voice". We see that after a person inhales helium gas, his voice changes, becomes ridiculously squeaky. If a person inhales another gas, sulfur hexafluoride, which is heavier than air, his voice takes on bass tones, which is also unusual and therefore funny.

What is the reason for this phenomenon?

But first, let's answer the question, thanks to what we can speak at all. How does a voice come about?

This happens when air passes from the lungs through the trachea into the larynx. In the larynx, approximately in the middle of it, there is a narrowing where the vocal cords are located, which actually generate the sound. The vocal cords are two horizontal folds, between which there is an opening called the glottis. If the vocal cords vibrate as air passes through them from the lungs, sound is produced. The vocal cords can produce a wide variety of movements. They can close, connect, change their length and thickness, thereby producing a variety of sounds.

But the links themselves are very weak. Therefore, the sound produced by them is very quiet. A resonator is needed to amplify this sound. The role of the resonator in the human vocal tract is performed by the pharynx. Throat is voluminous. It opens towards the mouth opening. The shape of the pharynx is wrong, but this shape is so cunningly “calculated” by nature that it amplifies the weak vibrations of the air that the vocal cords generate and directs them from the mouth towards the listener. The pharynx is located directly next to the bones of the skull. As a result, our voice travels to our ear not so much through the air as through our cranial bone. A strange effect is connected with this: we hear our own voice differently than the people around us hear it.

So, the human vocal tract is very similar to any sound-reproducing apparatus: it has a generator of sound vibrations (vocal cords) and an amplifier-resonator (pharynx). The nose and mouth, as well as the tongue, lips and palate in the mouth, are involved in articulation. Thanks to them, a person changes the sounds generated by the vocal cords and amplified by the pharynx, and pronounces words. If we draw an analogy with a radio transmitter, the main signal is modulated by the information signal.

What happens when a person inhales helium gas and starts talking? Due to the fact that helium is lighter than air, the vocal cords in the environment of this gas will fluctuate a little faster. But it is not because of this change that the tone of the voice rises so dramatically.

But for our throat, which, as already mentioned, works as a resonator, a change in the nature of the sound transmission medium is significant. After all, the resonant frequencies of the pharynx depend on its shape and volume. When air is replaced with helium, the speed of sound in the resonator almost triples, from 331 m/s to 965 m/s. But the configuration of the resonator has not changed. Therefore, the resonator will now enter into resonance (and therefore amplify) other, higher frequencies. All sounds coming out of the mouth of a person who "sipped" helium will shift towards higher frequencies. The voice will become more squeaky.

If, instead of light helium, we inhale a gas heavier than air, in which the speed of sound is lower, resonate with the pharynx, which means that sound vibrations with a lower frequency will be amplified. The voice will shift towards low frequencies and become unnaturally rough.

This is how all these miracles are explained.

Who among us has not tried to inhale the contents of helium balloons and then talk in a funny cartoon voice? Many are even sure that they understand why the voice is so...

Who among us has not tried to inhale the contents of helium balloons and then talk in a funny cartoon voice? Many are even sure that they understand why the voice changes so dramatically.

Here are the most common versions:

• Helium is less dense, so it makes the vocal cords vibrate more. Hence the higher squeaky voice.
• Helium is lighter than air and escapes faster. The speed of the movement of sound changes the voice.
• Helium changes the structure of the vocal cords, which entails a change in voice.

If you don't want to sound stupid, don't say that.

What is really going on?

These indicators are related by the formula:

Wave propagation speed = wave frequency * wavelength

It is the frequency of the sound wave that affects the characteristics of the voice, its individuality.

The vocal apparatus includes the oral and nasal cavities, pharynx, larynx, lungs and trachea. The vocal cords are located in the larynx. The vocal cords are folds in the mucous membrane of the larynx. They really fluctuate under the pressure of the air exhaled from the lungs. A sound wave is formed, that is, sound. But! It's not a voice. We don't even hear this sound.

What do we hear? Due to the vibration of the vocal cords, the air in the lungs and larynx also begins to vibrate. There is a resonance. This is a sharp increase in the amplitude of the oscillations of a sound wave. It is the resonance that makes the sound louder. These amplified sound waves we hear and call voice. Resonance occurs at different people at different frequencies with a specific wavelength of sound. Usually at four or five frequencies. Therefore, each person has a different voice. This is called the timbre of the voice. It is the timbre of the voice that changes when we inhale helium.

Why does the timbre of the voice change?

So, we inhale helium. What changed? The environment has changed. Helium is indeed less dense than air. The speed of a sound wave increases in a less dense medium, but its length remains the same (after all, the size of the mouth, pharynx, larynx did not change). What indicator is changing? Let's look at the formula. Correctly! Frequency. Resonance now occurs at higher frequencies of the sound wave. And we hear a different timbre of voice. Squeaky and funny.

Surely you will have fun with your friends more than once, speaking in the voice of a cartoon character. The effect of helium is so amazing that even an adult is hard to resist the temptation to inhale the contents of the balloon. Try to surprise your friends next time with an understanding of the nature of this phenomenon. No one doubts that laughter prolongs life, but only knowledge fills it with meaning.

Helium: changing a person's voice from helium?

Many in childhood did a “trick” with a gel ball, becoming a cartoon character for a while. So why does helium change the voice, and how long can we maintain such an effect?

No one can say the name of the first person who dared to inhale foreign gas and experience changes in vocal cords. However, many follow the path of "pioneers" and at parties show the skill of conversation in a sweet voice. There are a huge number of videos on the Internet that allow you to extend the effect of helium by 10-20 seconds. The average duration of the action of gas with one breath is 30 seconds, which is quite enough for telling a little joke or staging a parody.

Each of us asked ourselves questions about why the voice changes from helium, and on what factors it depends. First, helium belongs to the group of inert gases, whose density is higher than the density of the air that we all breathe. Secondly, when a certain amount of helium is inhaled, an active effect on the vocal cords begins: air masses "compress" them, and as a result, the interlocutor's speech changes to a child's.

So, the human timbre depends on many factors. However, an important role is played by the density of the air that a person inhales. If this indicator of inhaled content is less than a certain mark, then abrupt changes in speech may not be observed.

Thus, one can conclude the fact that the voice due to the inhalation of helium is changed solely due to the density of the foreign gas. Using this fact, a person can independently control the time of "mouse" speech.

Why else could the sonorous voice of the interlocutor familiar to everyone change? Similarly, the timbre would change not only under helium, but also under the influence of other air masses, whose density would be higher than the density of air familiar to us. One can imagine how a person could speak on the Sun or on the Moon if he inhaled the local air.

Note: Helium is one of the addictive gases. But in small doses, it does not pose any danger to humans. However, you should not abuse the inhalation of this element, as this can adversely affect your well-being.