Question

Suppose you're on a hot air balloon ride, carrying a buzzer that emits a sound of frequency f. If you accidentally drop the buzzer over the side while the balloon is rising at constant speed, what can you conclude about the sound you hear as the buzzer falls toward the ground?

(A) The frequency and intensity increase
(B) The frequency decrease and intensity increase
(C) The frequency decrease and intensity decrease
(D) The frequency remains the same, but the intensity decreases.

Answer 1

(C) The frequency decrease and intensity decrease

Step-by-step explanation:

The Doppler effect describes the change in frequency or wavelength of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source, or the wave source is moving relative to the observer, or both.

if the observer and the source move away from each other as is the case for this problem, the wavelength heard by the observer is bigger.

The frequency is the inverse from the wavelength, so the frequency heard will increase.

The sound intensity depends inversely on the area in which the sound propagates. When the buzzer is close, the area is from a small sphere, but as the buzzer moves further away, the wave area will be from a larger sphere and therefore the intensity will decrease.