How much do you know about The Doppler Effect? Nothing?…A little?….or A lot? I’ll admit I knew a little…just the basics. But I wanted to know more….I wanted to learn something NEW!

Each morning I drive past this city building that has a bell tower, and the bells sound at the top of each hour. I know when I’m just a few minutes late, because sometimes I pass as the bells are sounding and, of course, as I pass, the pitch of the bells change. {The Doppler Effect}. Don’t you just LOVE Wikipedia???  That’s the first place I went to learn more: Wikipedia/Doppler Effect.   Their analogy of the ball throwing I thought was excellent:

“To understand what happens, consider the following analogy. Someone throws one ball every second in a man’s direction. Assume that balls travel with constant velocity. If the thrower is stationary, the man will receive one ball every second. However, if the thrower is moving towards the man, he will receive balls more frequently because the balls will be less spaced out. The inverse is true if the thrower is moving away from the man.” (source: Wikipedia)

I pictured a tennis ball machine going awry and spitting multiple balls at a poor fellow/gal….but couldn’t find a visual of that for you…sorry! :o)

So, today I brushed up on what I already knew about the Doppler Effect and then increased my knowledge regarding that interesting subject.  What can you learn more about?  Learn something NEW today!