Why is it when cars that blast music pass my house the pitch/tone of the song and singer changes?
In: Physics
That’s the Doppler effect in action. Sound transmits to our ears as pressure waves in the air around us. A vehicle that is making noise while it is in motion is actually shortening the wavelength of the sounds it is sending your way by moving towards you while making sound, hence raising its pitch. As it moves away from you, it is artificially lengthening its sound waves thus lowering the pitch of the sound as perceived by you. The real pitch of the sound as experienced inside the vehicle (that is, from a FRAME OF REFERENCE with zero RELATIVE VELOCITY to the sound’s source) is actually somewhere between the two pitches you hear as it approaches then recedes.
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