Sunrise

A Special Effect of the Doppler Effect

Wynn Wolfe
Almost everyone has heard a shift in frequency when a car blowing its horn passes by. The pitch while it is approaching is somewhat higher than when at rest, and as it passes, the pitch drops. The result is a kind of eeeeoooo sound. This phenomenon is known as the Doppler Effect after the Austrian physicist Johann Doppler, who first worked out the analysis for sound in 1842. — Physics, Eugene Hecht, p. 469

With a playful sense of imagination, you can use the "eeoo" transition effect of the Doppler Effect to catapult yourself onto a higher plane of perception — above our pedestrian world. This is the elevated home of our ubiquitous Quantum Self, an advantageous, quiet place where thoughts and ideas are created, collected, appreciated, and directed. What follows is a nosegay of examples of this special effect:

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Paul Klee, Above the Mountain Peaks

These special effects of the Doppler Effect can lead to what the French refer to as jouissance ("deep joy") and what we call an epiphany — a silent moment of sudden intuitive understanding.

(From Sunrise magazine, October/November 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Theosophical University Press)



What is inconceivable about the universe, is that it should be at all conceivable. — Albert Einstein

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