Helium is a colorless, odorless noble gas. The noble moniker doesn’t make sense when you imagine a grown man at child’s party taking a balloon, inhaling, and then giggling like a five-year-old when he hears his own squeaky cartoonlike voice.
Helium causes this voice change by altering the environment where sound is formed. In normal conditions, the voice makes sounds using the vocal cords. The cords or folds vibrate, releasing pulses or waves of air into the throat. These waves are interpreted as sound. If we change the composition of the air, we change the way the vocal cords vibrate. Helium is lighter than air so our vocal cords will vibrate faster in this environment. The speed of sound in air is approximately 350m/s, but the speed of sound in helium is 900m/s. The faster vibration causes the higher pitch.
List of our favorite high-pitched voices:
- Tweety Bird
- Tiny Tim
- Alvin and the Chipmunks
- Megan Mullaly
- Mike Tyson
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"Why does sucking on helium make your voice sound funny?" was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pm.