Doppler, Christian#

b. Salzburg, Nov. 29, 1803, d. Venice (Italy), March 17, 1853, important mathematician and physicist; father of Adolf Doppler. After teaching in Prague, Chemnitz and Vienna, became professor of experimental physics in Vienna (1850), founded the Institute of Physics at the University of Vienna. Discovered the D. effect (named after him) in acoustics and optics (the influence of motion on a source of light or sound and its observer, e.g., the apparent deepening of a passing train's whistle), which he described in his most significant publication "On the coloured light of double stars and other constellations in the heavens" (1842); this paved the way for the measurement of the radial velocity of stars.

Literature#