Doppler Effect - AP Physics 2

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Question

A bat is flying towards a stationary wall at a constant speed of . The bat emits a sound of towards the wall, which is then reflected back at the bat. If the speed of sound in air is , what is the frequency of sound that the bat experiences?

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Answer

To answer this question, it's imperative to realize that we'll need to use the equation for the doppler effect. First, we'll need to calculate the frequency of the sound that reaches the wall. Then, we'll have to calculate the frequency of the reflected wave that reaches the bat.

The doppler effect equation is:

In the first case, we'll consider the frequency received by the wall. The bat is the source in this scenario, which is moving, while the wall is the stationary observer. Therefore, the term in the above equation is 0. Moreover, since the bat is moving towards the wall, we should expect the frequency received by the wall to be larger than the original frequency. Hence, we will need to subtract the speed of the source in the denominator, since that will result in the expected increase in observed frequency.

Now that we have the frequency relfected from the wall, we can calculate the frequency that the bat will experience. In this scenario, the wall is now the source. But because it isn't moving, we can say that the term in the doppler equation is 0. Likewise, the bat is now the observer in this case and is still moving at a speed of . Also, because the bat is moving towards the source, then conceptually we should expect the bat to observe a frequency that is greater than that reflected by the wall. To ensure this, we will need to add the term in the numerator of the doppler equation.

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