At what speed should a dog run so as not to hear the ringing of a frying pan tied to it?

At what speed should a dog run so as not to hear the ringing of a frying pan tied to it? - briefly

To determine the speed at which a dog should run to avoid hearing the ringing of a frying pan tied to it, one must consider the Doppler effect. This effect states that the perceived frequency of a sound changes as the source and observer move relative to each other. When the dog runs away from the pan, the sound waves become stretched out, causing a decrease in the frequency heard by the dog. The speed at which this occurs is dependent on the initial frequency of the ringing pan and the speed of sound in air.

At what speed should a dog run so as not to hear the ringing of a frying pan tied to it? - in detail

To determine at what speed a dog should run in order not to hear the ringing of a frying pan tied to its tail, we need to consider several principles from physics and acoustics.

Firstly, let's understand how sound travels. Sound is essentially a wave that requires a medium to travel through. In this case, the medium is air. The speed at which sound travels in air is approximately 343 meters per second (m/s) at room temperature. This means that any sound generated by the frying pan will travel at this speed.

Now, let's consider the dog running away from the source of the sound. As the dog moves, it creates a relative motion between itself and the sound waves. To understand how this affects the perception of the sound, we can use the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect describes the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to its source.

For a moving observer (the dog) approaching a stationary source of sound (the frying pan), the perceived frequency increases. Conversely, if the observer is moving away from the source, the perceived frequency decreases. The formula for the Doppler effect is:

[ f' = \frac{v + v_s}{v + v_o}f ]

where ( f' ) is the observed frequency, ( v ) is the speed of sound in air, ( v_s ) is the speed of the source (which is 0 since the frying pan is stationary), ( v_o ) is the speed of the observer (the dog), and ( f ) is the original frequency.

For the dog not to hear the ringing, the perceived frequency should be lower than the audible range for dogs, which typically extends from 40 Hz to 60 kHz. However, since we are dealing with a high-frequency sound (the ringing of the frying pan), let's assume that the dog needs to move fast enough so that the perceived frequency drops below its hearing threshold.

To find the speed at which this occurs, we need to set ( f' ) to be less than or equal to 40 Hz (the lower limit of a dog's audible range). Rearranging the Doppler effect formula for ( v_o ), we get:

[ v_o = \frac{v(f - f')}{f'} ]

Substituting ( v = 343 \, \text{m/s} ) and assuming ( f' = 40 \, \text{Hz} ), we can solve for ( v_o ). However, without the specific frequency of the ringing frying pan (( f )), we cannot calculate an exact speed.

In practice, dogs are sensitive to high-frequency sounds, and the ringing of a metal object like a frying pan would likely generate frequencies well above 40 Hz. Therefore, for the dog not to hear the ringing at all, it would need to run at a speed significantly higher than what is physically attainable by most dogs.

In summary, while we can use the principles of acoustics and the Doppler effect to understand how the perceived frequency changes as the dog runs away from the sound source, determining an exact speed at which the dog would no longer hear the ringing requires knowing the specific frequency of the frying pan's ringing. Given that dogs are highly sensitive to high-frequency sounds, it is likely that the required speed would be beyond the capabilities of most dogs.