Who discovered the phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect?

The Doppler Effect is named after Christian Doppler, the Austrian physicist who first described this phenomenon in 1842. He proposed that the frequency of waves, including sound and light, changes for observers moving relative to the source of the waves. This principle explains why a train whistle sounds higher as it approaches and lower as it moves away from an observer. Doppler’s work laid the groundwork for numerous applications in various fields, including astronomy, radar and medical imaging.

While other scientists like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and James Clerk Maxwell made significant contributions to physics, they did not discover the Doppler Effect itself. Einstein is famous for his theories of relativity, Newton is known for his laws of motion and gravitation, and Maxwell contributed greatly to electromagnetism. Each of their contributions has its own significance in physics, but they are not directly linked to the discovery of the Doppler Effect.