Deep-sea divers often breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen to avoid the compli

Question

Deep-sea divers often breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen to avoid the complications of breathing high-pressure nitrogen. At great depths the mix is almost entirely helium, which has the side effect of making the divers' voices sound very odd. Breathing helium doesn't affect the frequency at which the vocal cords vibrate, but it does affect the frequencies of the formants. The text gives the frequencies of the first two formants for an "ee" vowel sound as 270 and 2300 Hz.

What will these frequencies be for a helium-oxygen mixture in which the speed of sound at body temperature is 720m/s ? (Use 350 m/s for the speed of sound in the air.)

Explanation / Answer

maybe I'm over simplifying
but
V = f L
so frequency is directly proportional to velocity
so
750/350 * 270 = 278.6 Hz
and
750/350 * 2300 = 4928.6 Hz

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