The Doppler Effect

Source velocity (in units of the speed of sound)
-2 +2
0.0
Source position (m)
-50 +50
-20
Observer velocity (in units of the speed of sound)
-2 +2
0.0
Observer position (m)
-50 +50
20

This is a simulation of the Doppler effect. You can set both the initial position and the velocity of the source (the small blue dot). and the initial position and the velocity of the observer (green rectangle), and then see the pattern of waves emitted by the source as the waves wash over the observer. The source emits a frequency of 100 Hz when the source is at rest. fo represents the observed frequency (the one heard by the observer).

Simulation first posted on 1-27-2017. Written by Andrew Duffy

Creative Commons License
This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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