Well, I did mean hydrogen, as we had a cylinder of it in the uni chemistry lab that was a source of post-examinations stress relief and fun. But the effect and 'squeaky voice' with helium would be much the same as with hydrogen, and safer, too. Less likely blow yourself up! .
I reckon many people have tried breathing helium and got a squeaky voice. I've never heard, however, of anyone breathing xenon and getting a deep voice!
I think the goto gas for a deep voice is sulphur hexafluoride?
There should be lots of reports of people breathing Xenon. It's used as an anaesthetic gas.
That's the one. Either way you've got to breathe air (or at least oxygen) at the same time or you just stop breathing, pass out and probably die. The same with nitrous oxide, which is why they call the stuff that paramedics use "gas and air". (Actually I think it's nitrous oxide and oxygen - I don't know whether the operators can adjust the ratio.)
This is because it's the presence of carbon dioxide in the lungs which stimulates breathing, not the absence of oxygen.
Um, where/when? It’s been a few years since I last gave an anaesthetic but xenon was never on the menu.
A quick search shows that it has been trialed/used but has a very high incidence of post-op nausea and vomiting. I imaging the number of hospitals with xenon supplies is vanishingly small.
Tim
I have tried it the other way round. No, not that way, but blowing helium in one ear canal. Very odd experience. I think that the difference in the speed of sounds shifts the acoustically perceived source of sound to the side of the seen source of sound. So someone talking will be heard off to their side.
Thomas Prufer
I would like to generate it here on earth, at scale, to dilute the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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Then you'll be diluting the nitrogen, too. And once the O2 content is increased to more than 35% or so, due to your O2 generation activities, the s*it will hit the fan - namely, wet wood and wet vegetation will burn nicely and you'll have fires all over the planet.
NB - that wouldn't be the first time in the Earth's history that O2 will have been at 35%. It will crank up the CO2 levels, nicely, too, to historical levels.
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Furthermore, once the O2 content reaches some level (dunno what, but this certainly applies to 100% O2 at atmos pressure), breathing it will cause serious lung damage.
Not breathing is also a health hazard. You can't win.
ROTFLMAO!!
Not always.
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