Question

Imagine a moving boat making waves in the middle of a pool of water. Also imagine two observers, one behind the boat and one in front of the boat. Describe how each observer will see the waves generated by the boat and explain their observations.

Answer 1

This is called the Doppler effect. The observer in front of the boat will see the waves arriving at a higher frequency, and a lower frequency will be observed by the observer behind the boat. If the object is moving toward the observer, the waves show a decrease in their wavelength.