For my waves unit blog post I decided to explore the doppler effect, something I did not really get initially. I thought this lab would be a great way to understand the concept of the doppler effect by using a real life example. The Doppler effect is the change in frequency or wavelength of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. For a source and observer with no relative motion, the wavefronts are all centered at the source at all times. Observers on any side will hear the frequency of sound from the source. The change in frequency results in a change in pitch. You can see this when my car moves past the camera, as the sound gets "louder" as it gets closer. As the car approaches the pitch increases, but as it is moving away the pitch decreases. The reason this happens is because with the doppler effect, the waves are 360 degrees. This means that as the car gets closer to the camera's microphone, the wavefronts are much closer together, hence, creating a higher frequency. When the car gets farther away from the camera, the wavefronts of the sound waves are much farther apart which decreases the frequency. The waves still travel at the same speed, the only thing that changes is frequency and wavelength. The diagram below demonstrates how wavefronts change as the distance changes with the observer and the car.
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AuthorSami Khleifat: Junior studying AP Physics 1 at the Flint Hill School Archives |