Doppler Effect Essay

1087 Words3 Pages

Maxim Gurevich
Doppler Effect Physics IA
Introduction
The Doppler Effect is a wave phenomenon that can be heard every day. It affects different sound differently depending on their sources’ speed relative to the observer. I noticed this when I observed that if the source moves too slowly, the effect is less apparent. I wanted to explore this situation, and to fulfill my curiosity, I used a sound emitter traveling in a circle. I asked this question: “How does the angular velocity of a sound emitter traveling in a circle affect the range of frequencies heard by a fixed observer?” Background The Doppler Effect is the shift in apparent frequency for an observer when a source of waves is moving towards or away from the observer, causing the pressure …show more content…

Motor Power Seconds Per Revolution of Sound Source (sec +/- .01 sec) Average Uncer. Of Ave.
% trial 1 trial 2 trial 3 trial 4 trial 5 trial 6 trial 7 trial 8 trial 9 (sec +/- .09 sec)
10 1.72 1.75 1.66 1.82 1.82 1.78 1.76 1.75 1.72 1.75 0.04
20 0.51 0.52 0.52 0.55 0.55 0.57 0.58 0.56 0.6 0.55 0.045
30 0.35 0.35 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.35 0.36 0.35 0.35 0.015
40 0.25 0.28 0.25 0.27 0.27 0.26 0.25 0.24 0.28 0.26 0.02
50 0.21 0.23 0.22 0.2 0.2 0.22 0.21 0.2 0.25 0.22 0.025
60 0.19 0.19 0.18 0.19 0.2 0.2 0.19 0.17 0.2 0.19 0.015
70 0.19 0.2 0.19 0.18 0.21 0.18 0.18 0.17 0.17 0.19 0.02
80 0.22 0.19 0.22 0.19 0.19 0.2 0.19 0.19 0.22 0.2 0.015
90 0.17 0.19 0.2 0.19 0.19 0.17 0.17 0.19 0.19 0.18 0.015 Ave. = +/- .023 sec

speed # Seconds per Revolution (sec+/-.023 sec) Angular velocity (2π / sec per rev) (+/-.023 rad/sec) Min frequency (Hz+/-.01Hz) Max frequency (Hz+/-.01Hz) Ave. (Hz+/-0.2Hz) Range (max-min) …show more content…

Possibly the largest source of error is in the structure of spinning mechanism. It is likely that the materials used to build the spinner, namely plastic and a small motor, lose accuracy and consistency at high speeds, shaking due to slight imbalances between the sound emitter and the counter weight. This could cause unexpected fluctuations in the frequency of the sound received by the microphone. Additionally, even though the angular velocity was carefully measured by hand with a stopwatch, there is a slight difference between the recorded rpm of the rotating platform and the actual rpm of the platform. The relatively small radius of the path of the sound emitter limited the range of the experiment. A larger radius might have yielded a larger range of data points, due to the greater velocity resulting from the longer circumference that the sound emitter must travel per revolution. With the current setup however, fluctuations in volume are insignificant due to the small change in distance between the sound emitter and the microphone. An improved version of this lab would include stronger and lighter materials as well as a lighter sound emitter to minimize the shaking of the set up at high rpm rates. A smarter motor, which detects, selects, and maintains its own rpm would be more consistent

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