Doppler Effect and Third Eye

Shen Ge
1 min readMay 6, 2024
Drawing of third eye I made earlier this week

I believe in my third eye

Linear perspectives play tricks on my usual eyes

Distant streets always converges to a single point

An optical illusion my brain is well-adapted to

However, lately, I’ve been struck by another illusion

I’ve been reading about the Doppler effect

f = (c+/-v_r)/(c+/-v_s) * f_0

Yesterday, I heard the siren of the fire truck next door

Whine rose in pitch

then fell as its engine sped away

Light from distant stars appear redder

— Hubble says the universe is expanding.

When our spacecraft Odysseus sped away

from terrestrial tracking stations

towards the void that predictably became the moon

I had faith in the physics of measured Doppler frequency shifts

We landed safely.

If physics equals reality and

reality can only be seen by my third eye,

then by the transitive property,

my third eye can see physics.

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Shen Ge
Shen Ge

Written by Shen Ge

Engineer and console operator who helped America land back on the moon 2/22/2024. Enjoys code + poetry. Become a member: https://medium.com/@shenge86/membership

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