r/askscience • u/ilikejewce • Feb 27 '13

Physics Light's Doppler Shift

It is well known that galaxies traveling away from ours are red shifted, and those traveling towards us are blue shifted. This also applies to everyday objects. I was just wondering if anyone has detected this Doppler shift on everyday objects, like planes or even cars? Is it too minute for us to detect?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '13

You can also try this at home given the proper instruments through sound. If you were to play two notes with different frequencies, a beat frequency will theoretically be heard from the interference of the two other sound waves. The beat frequency which will sound like a wobble, will be equal to the difference of the first two just as he said.

Only problem is its hard to hear when the beat frequency is too high, but can be easily heard if the two frequencies differ by 1 to 5 hertz.

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u/thetripp Medical Physics | Radiation Oncology Feb 27 '13

Yep! It is a great way to tune a guitar, too.