¶ Doppler Effect
Index Entry
There is a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect, of which humans took much note in the early days of the locomotive. The high tone of the locomotive’s whistle as it approached changed to an increasingly low pitch as the locomotive went by. This is because the sound waves of the air coming toward us from the approaching locomotive at about 700 miles per hour are crowded together by the locomotive’s approaching speed of 60 miles per hour. Similarly, the waves are thinned by the locomotive’s speeding away. The Doppler effect may be operating in our history so that the relative frequency and wavelengths of approaching events are compacted, and receding ones thinned. It could be that by travelling mentally backward in history, as far as we have, any information about humans could-- like drawing a bowstring-- impel our thoughts effectively into the future.
