What Is the Doppler Effect?

By jamie

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Mankind’s hunger for knowledge is never likely to be satiated. No matter how much we learn, the more we want to find out, and our drive to learn more, has helped us to unlock many of the universes secrets. This includes things such as how light and sound work and some of the answers have led to some quite astonishing revelations.

One such revelation is the Doppler effect, a phenomenon that has helped us to learn a great deal about our universe. It is used to help measure things on a universal scale and also helps to measure things on the cellular scale. Here’s a look at what it is and how we have been able to use it to our advantage.

1. Christian Doppler

The Doppler effect is named after Christian Andrea Doppler, the physicist who first described the phenomenon. Doppler was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1803, and died in 1853. It was in 1842 that he presented his groundbreaking work when he was aged 38 years old. At the same time, a French physicist by the name of Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau was also making discoveries on the phenomenon. Fizeaus work was able to help Doppler make his own work more accurate. In France, the phenomenon is known as the Doppler-Fizeau effect. Their discoveries are now a key component of many scientific branches and, in 2017, a Google Doodle celebrated Dopplers 214th birthday.

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