Abstract
The Doppler light (wavelength or frequency) shift depends on relative velocity alone. Demanding Lorentz invariance of the light wave phase, we show that the Doppler shift is reciprocal: any two observer-sources will find a reciprocal Doppler light shift which allows each of the two to identify the relative velocity vector. Time dilation, i.e. clock time of the source or the observer, does not enter this discussion. On the other hand, the aberration of line of sight is an essential element required for proper understanding the Doppler shift.
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- 1.
Christian Andreas Doppler (1803–1853), Professor of Mathematics and Practical Geometry at the Technical Institute (1841–1847) (now Czech Technical University) in Prague at the time of the Doppler shift announcement in 1842/1843.
- 2.
R.V. Pound, G.A. Rebka Jr. “Gravitational Red-Shift in Nuclear Resonance,” Physical Review Letters 3, 439 (1959); “Apparent weight of photons,” ibid. 4, 337 (1960).
- 3.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 was awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess “…for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.”
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Rafelski, J. (2017). SR-Doppler Shift. In: Relativity Matters. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51231-0_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51231-0_13
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51231-0
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