Let’s see. 55 mph is about 81 feet per second. Guess about 400 feet for a city block. I can hear the truck about one block away. 400 divided by 81, about 5 seconds. More or less. Of course, I also have to state: “your mileage may vary”.
Trick question. The Doppler effect does not increase as the truck recedes, it’s constant given the speed. What makes it unrecognizable is distance not Doppler.
As I observe the Doppler effect, as the classic case of the receding train whistle, I noticed that the effect does change with distance. The pitch shift is large at first, decreasing in amount and rate of change as the train moves farther away. However, the effect on a melody will be negligible, because all pitches will shift by roughly the same amount. The ratios between pitches will not change enough to render the melody unrecognizable before the sound fades away in the distance.
Doppler would change the key (lower the pitch), but have no other effect. Background noise has far more effect than anything. On a windless prairie, the tune would be recognizable at a mile, in traffic-filled city it will be lost in a couple of corners.
Badly-written question. As anyone who has heard a musical truck go by should know, the Doppler effect might change the perceived pitch slightly, but it won’t make the tune unrecognizable. The tune is recognizable until the truck is far enough away that you can’t hear it.
Ice cream Trucks in my time had a string of bells. No recorded songs. Made kids salivate for popsicles & ice cream. Then beg a nickel or dime from parents.
Mae West said too much of a good thing can be wonderful, and Robert Heinlein (and Mick Jagger, and Seal, and Ayn Rand, and half the world, appropriately) said anything worth doing is worth overdoing. I love it. But then Sting wrote the song “Message in a Bottle” with the closing phrase “sending out an SOS” repeated over and over and over until you realize that there most certainly CAN be too much of a good thing, and that a perfectly good riff can most certainly be overdone, and GOOD GOD, WILL THIS FORMERLY GOOD NOW DREADFUL SONG NEVER END? To this day, I don’t know what their producer was thinking.
It’s a nice way to look at the end of summer. A quarter-year of it is just fantastic. Shoot, a half-year of it, depending on your latitude. And maybe it’s good all year ‘round, if that’s your thing, but I don’t know if it could be my thing. Make no mistake, fall comes too soon for me every year, but it needs to come, or else I’d either summer myself into burnout or, worse, into complacency. And while summer might end too soon, better too soon than too late. I’d rather suffer through sleet than forget how to appreciate sunny and 70s.
Although that’s where the musical analogy ends, because it seems more often than not, on the kind of radio stations or — deal with it, boomers — grocery store soundtracks that play “Message in a Bottle,” the next song is something by the band Journey, which is like summer ending and being followed not by a chill but by The Plague.
cabalonrye about 7 years ago
Does it turn a corner?
Lyons Group, Inc. about 7 years ago
Does every ice cream truck plays that? “Turkey in The Straw”? The one in our neighborhood certainly does!
Phred Premium Member about 7 years ago
Let’s see. 55 mph is about 81 feet per second. Guess about 400 feet for a city block. I can hear the truck about one block away. 400 divided by 81, about 5 seconds. More or less. Of course, I also have to state: “your mileage may vary”.
JohnRidley1 about 7 years ago
Trick question. The Doppler effect does not increase as the truck recedes, it’s constant given the speed. What makes it unrecognizable is distance not Doppler.
whiteheron about 7 years ago
I don’t know about the Doppler effect, but it took about 60 years for the sound to fade to me. But then I am going deaf so,….
sandpiper about 7 years ago
Does the Doppler Effect matter if you missed your last chance at ice cream?
Arianne about 7 years ago
Just trying to get everyone in a Good Humor?
(Toasted almond, please.)
JudyAz about 7 years ago
Why is the ice cream truck doing 55 in a residential area? Or do they live on the freeway?
Greg Tucker about 7 years ago
A few of you must have stayed at the Holiday Inn last night!
Richard S Russell Premium Member about 7 years ago
For many parents, the thing that takes the sting out of the last day of summer is that it’s the last day of summer.
rugeirn about 7 years ago
As I observe the Doppler effect, as the classic case of the receding train whistle, I noticed that the effect does change with distance. The pitch shift is large at first, decreasing in amount and rate of change as the train moves farther away. However, the effect on a melody will be negligible, because all pitches will shift by roughly the same amount. The ratios between pitches will not change enough to render the melody unrecognizable before the sound fades away in the distance.
Al Nala about 7 years ago
Blew me away! This was funny! Well, for me.
JoeMartinFan Premium Member about 7 years ago
Clever, poignant, and not cynical. WIN!!!
Hippogriff about 7 years ago
Doppler would change the key (lower the pitch), but have no other effect. Background noise has far more effect than anything. On a windless prairie, the tune would be recognizable at a mile, in traffic-filled city it will be lost in a couple of corners.
danketaz Premium Member about 7 years ago
Much would depend on how fast you are going to catch up with it.
GaryCooper about 7 years ago
Badly-written question. As anyone who has heard a musical truck go by should know, the Doppler effect might change the perceived pitch slightly, but it won’t make the tune unrecognizable. The tune is recognizable until the truck is far enough away that you can’t hear it.
GaryCooper about 7 years ago
Jeff Mallett must live up north. Where I live, we have ice-cream trucks all year.
Banjo Gordy Premium Member about 7 years ago
Ice cream Trucks in my time had a string of bells. No recorded songs. Made kids salivate for popsicles & ice cream. Then beg a nickel or dime from parents.
Brian G Premium Member about 7 years ago
I love the fact that this strip not only makes me chuckle but ponder, learn and wonder too.
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] about 7 years ago
Frazz
17 hrs ·
Mae West said too much of a good thing can be wonderful, and Robert Heinlein (and Mick Jagger, and Seal, and Ayn Rand, and half the world, appropriately) said anything worth doing is worth overdoing. I love it. But then Sting wrote the song “Message in a Bottle” with the closing phrase “sending out an SOS” repeated over and over and over until you realize that there most certainly CAN be too much of a good thing, and that a perfectly good riff can most certainly be overdone, and GOOD GOD, WILL THIS FORMERLY GOOD NOW DREADFUL SONG NEVER END? To this day, I don’t know what their producer was thinking.
It’s a nice way to look at the end of summer. A quarter-year of it is just fantastic. Shoot, a half-year of it, depending on your latitude. And maybe it’s good all year ‘round, if that’s your thing, but I don’t know if it could be my thing. Make no mistake, fall comes too soon for me every year, but it needs to come, or else I’d either summer myself into burnout or, worse, into complacency. And while summer might end too soon, better too soon than too late. I’d rather suffer through sleet than forget how to appreciate sunny and 70s.
Although that’s where the musical analogy ends, because it seems more often than not, on the kind of radio stations or — deal with it, boomers — grocery store soundtracks that play “Message in a Bottle,” the next song is something by the band Journey, which is like summer ending and being followed not by a chill but by The Plague.
rgcviper about 7 years ago
This one reminds me of a Q&A I found online a while back:
If you have four pencils and seven apples, how many pancakes will fit on the roof?
Purple, because aliens don’t wear hats.