Doppler

The Doppler effect ruins techno music.

While biking home today, I stopped at a red light next to a car from which I heard some loud techno music. Heavy bass beats, repetitive synthesized melodies, that sort of thing. I can't say I didn't like it, though I doubt I would buy the CD for myself.

The next light was red, too, but it had a line of cars, so I passed the techno car (slowly because of a truck that was turning ahead of me) and pedaled my way up to the light. After it changed and I got going again, the traffic, naturally, sped up to a higher speed than I could go. The techno car passed me again, traveling somewhere between ten and fifteen miles per hour faster. I heard the music again, but the Doppler effect (that perceived change in pitch caused by compression or decompression of sound waves as one object moves in relation to another--like the horn of a speeding truck) ruined it. It sounded like a warped record or an audio cassette in a Walkman whose batteries are failing.

See if I ever try to listen to somebody else's music on the road again.