TABLE OF CONTENTS The doppler effect is named after Christian Andreas Doppler, who was the first to analyze it. The effect is an apparent shift of the frequency of a wave due to the relative velocity between the observer and the source of the wave. Anyone who has stood by a railroad track as a speeding train passes by has experienced the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect observed is that the train whistle has a higher pitch as the train approaches and a lower pitch as the train goes away. In fact, this observation of a moving train is the first method by which Doppler s prediction of an apparent frequency shift was first experimentally verified qualitatively.
Doppler was born on 29 November 1803 in Salzburg, Austria, into a family of well-known stone masons. He had two brothers and two sisters. As was the custom, he and his brothers were expected to work in the family stone masonry business. However, Christian was sickly and so could not successfully ply the stone mason trade. It is thought that the stone dust he inhaled helped the development of consumption (tuberculosis). The family thus decided to send him to school, a fortunate decision because he became an outstanding student. His excellence eventually resulted in his being appointed in 1835 professor of elementary mathematics and commercial accounting at the State Secondary School in Prague and supplementary professor of higher mathematics and practical geometry at the Prague Technical Institute. Finally, by Imperial Decree of 6...
