If This Sticker Is Blue Then You Are Driving Too Fast Explained
Every word in this sentence is a funny bumper sticker.
Oh yeah, was I supposed to be analyzing one of these things? Sorry. Got a little distracted while searching. Okay, here:
This bumper sticker is supposed to criticize tailgating. In order to achieve its goal, the sticker employs the tactics of –
Hold on a second. That sticker isn't blue.
Well ladies and gentlemen, I haven't seen something fail in such an obvious way since my last calculus quiz. Not only is the bumper sticker relying on uncommon knowledge to make its point, the way it employs that knowledge is WRONG. Let's examine what this sticker is trying to say and how it utterly misses the mark.
The goal was to mildly and tastefully insult the tailgater by utilizing a bit of humor. The joke on this sticker relies on the offending driver understanding the Doppler Effect. This physics phenomenon applies to energy transmitted as waves, usually light or sound. If the object emitting the waves moves in a direction, a "blue shift" occurs in that direction; the waves are getting condensed into each other, which makes us perceive them in a deeper shade of blue or a higher pitch. You witness it every time a police car drives by your dorm on College Avenue when you're trying to sleep. As the car approaches you, the siren is high pitched, but once it passes you and drives away, it sounds lower.
This sticker is claiming that a blue shift could be occurring if you are driving "too fast." In general, that's true – but in this context, that's the wrong thing to say and the wrong way to say it.
First of all, as I've already covered in depth, that sticker isn't blue. It's red. And it will always be red at the speeds we can achieve in motor vehicles. The sound example I used above is true, but to witness the Doppler Effect with light waves, you're going to need a little more speed than your Prius going downhill with the wind at your back. The layperson is just going to read this sticker and think, "It's… not blue. Is this idiot color blind?"
My main gripe with this sticker, though, is the part where it's PLAIN WRONG. Someone at the "American Physical Society" should know that the Doppler Effect is relevant to relative velocity, not relative position, which is the actual complaint by victims of tailgating.
The sticker's car is moving forward. In front of it, the waves of sound and the waves of light are compressed more than they should be; the car emits one wave then "catches up" with it before it emits another one, which clumps the waves closer together than they would like. If that's what happens in the front of the vehicle – which is the direction of motion – then the opposite must be happening at the back. That's a red shift; each wave is farther apart than you'd expect. The bad driver, the tailgater, is following the vehicle with the bumper sticker emitting the red shift,but the tailgater is experiencing a blue shift of his own. Are the two drivers traveling at identical velocities? Yes, they are! They're too close to each other, but if they're maintaining a constant distance, then they are moving at equal speeds at that time. Therefore, the red shift and blue shift will offset each other, which means the offending driver will see the bumper sticker exactly as it is in reality.
"You're driving too fast" – not if I'm able to read these tiny words. I can't be continuing to accelerate if I'm already that close behind you. No, I must be driving equally fast as you. Which negates this whole Doppler Effect thing. Which is the basis of saying the sticker is blue.
"Logic, reduced" – yeah, clearly. Way to take a scientific law that I learned from the Discovery Channel in kindergarten and not understand it, American Physical Society.
Source: https://sites.psu.edu/wplblog/2013/10/23/rcl-8-logic-reduced/
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