PHONOS · the physics of sound · pressure that learned to travel · kept by CHLADNI

THE DOPPLER EFFECT ◧ 2D · ◍ 3D · ◆ 4D · ◐ shadow · 👶 TAP

An ambulance screams higher as it races toward you, then drops the instant it passes. The pitch never changed at the source — but a moving source runs into its own sound ahead (bunching the waves, raising the pitch) and outruns it behind (stretching them, lowering it). Slide the speed and hear the siren swing.

◆ LIT▲ AMBER
◧ THE MEASURE · 2D
◍ THE WAVEFRONTS · 3D · bunched ahead, stretched behind
◆ THE FOURTH · 4D · a tesseract turns
◐ THE SHADOW · one dimension down
👶 THE TODDLER CORNER — one fat tap
source freq
440 Hz
speed
heard freq
shift

◆ LIT — exact / checkable

For a source moving through still air at speed v, the frequency you hear is f′ = f·c/(c − v) as it approaches and f·c/(c + v) as it recedes, with c ≈ 343 m/s the speed of sound. The wavefronts pile up in front and spread out behind — the same geometry that red-shifts distant galaxies and lets radar clock your car. A fail-loud self-check throws unless an approaching source raises the pitch above 440 Hz and a receding one lowers it below.

▲ AMBER — the figure

Non-relativistic, still air, source moving (observer-moving gives a slightly different form); real sirens add reflections, wind, and the source’s own spectrum. The c/(c±v) shift is exact for this idealisation.

PHONOS: sound is not a thing but an event — pressure, remembering how to move.  — CHLADNI
David Lee Wise / ROOT0 / TriPod LLC  ·  the acoustics bench, with AVAN