Christian Doppler

Portrait of Doppler in a 1907 copy of "Abhandlungen," no.161

Doppler was born in Salzburg (today Austria) in 1803. Doppler was the second son born to Johann Evangelist Doppler and Theresia Seeleuthner (Doppler). Doppler's father, Johann Doppler, was a skilled third-generation stone mason in Salzburg.[2] As a young boy, Doppler showed promise for his family's trade.[3] However, his small frame and his delicate physique was not meant for the work of a stone mason. When his father realized that Christian was not cut out for the family trade, he instead pushed him to pursue a career in commerce. This lead to his mathematical ability being discovered by the mathematician Sion Stampfer, whose assessment of Doppler lead him to attend the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna at the age of 17.[3] After completing high school, Doppler studied philosophy in Salzburg and mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna and Imperial–Royal Polytechnic Institute (now TU Wien). In 1829, Doppler was chosen for an assistant position to Professor Adam von Burg at the Polytechnic Institute of Vienna, where he continued his studies.[4] In 1835 Doppler decided to immigrate to the United States to pursue a position in academia.[5] Before departing for the United States, Doppler was offered a professorship of mathematics in Prague, which convinced him to stay in Europe.[5] In 1835 he began work at the Prague Polytechnic (now Czech Technical University in Prague), where he received an appointment in 1841.

Doppler's birth house in the Makart square in Salzburg, just next door to where Mozart's family had lived. A Doppler research-and memorial society is now housed there.[6]

Plaque on the house in Prague in which Doppler lived from 1843 to 1847

One year later, at the age of 38, Doppler gave a lecture to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences and subsequently published his most notable work, Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels ("On the coloured light of the binary stars and some other stars of the heavens"). There is a facsimile edition with an English translation by Alec Eden.[2] In this work, Doppler postulated his principle (later coined the Doppler effect) that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer, and he later tried to use this concept for explaining the visible colours of binary stars (this hypothesis was later proven wrong). Doppler believed that if a star were to exceed 136,000 kilometers per second in radial velocity, then it would not be visible to the human eye.[7] However, what Doppler believed was only partially true, as stars also have their own inherent color.[5]

In 1845, the first demonstration of the Doppler effect would occur in Utrecht, Holland. The demonstration was performed through participants on a train that would pass by a group of musicians, in which they were able to observe a notable difference in the sound when approaching and passing by the musicians.[5]

Physicist Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (23 September 1819 – 18 September 1896) also contributed to aspects of the discovery of the Doppler effect,[8] which is known by the French as the Doppler-Fizeau Effect. Fizeau contributed towards understanding its effect with light and also developed formal mathematical theorems underlying the principles of this effect. In 1848, he predicted the frequency shift of a wave when the source and receiver are moving relative to each other,[8] therefore, being the first to predict blueshifts and redshifts of spectral lines in stars.[9]

Doppler continued working as a professor at the Prague Polytechnic, publishing over 50 articles on mathematics, physics and astronomy, but in 1847 he left Prague for the professorship of mathematics, physics, and mechanics at the Academy of Mines and Forests (its successor is the University of Miskolc[10]) in Selmecbánya (then Kingdom of Hungary, now Banská Štiavnica Slovakia).

Doppler's research was interrupted by the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. In 1849, he fled to Vienna[1] and in 1850 was appointed head of the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna. While there, Doppler, along with Franz Unger, influenced the development of young Gregor Mendel, the founding father of genetics, who was a student at the University of Vienna from 1851 to 1853.[11]

Doppler died on 17 March 1853 at age 49 from a pulmonary disease in Venice (at that time part of the Austrian Empire). His tomb, found by Dr. Peter M. Schuster,[12] is just inside the entrance of the Venetian island cemetery of San Michele.[13]

Some confusion exists about Doppler's full name. Doppler referred to himself as Christian Doppler. The records of his birth and baptism stated Christian Andreas Doppler. Forty years after Doppler's death the misnomer Johann Christian Doppler was introduced by the astronomer Julius Scheiner. Scheiner's mistake has since been copied by many.[2]

• Christian Doppler (1803–1853). Wien: Böhlau, 1992.
  • Bd. 1: ISBN 3-205-05483-0
    • 1. Teil: Helmuth Grössing (unter Mitarbeit von B. Reischl): Wissenschaft, Leben, Umwelt, Gesellschaft;
    • 2. Teil: Karl Kadletz (unter Mitarbeit von Peter Schuster und Ildikó Cazan-Simányi) Quellenanhang.
  • Bd. 2: ISBN 3-205-05508-X
    • 3. Teil: Peter Schuster: Das Werk.

• List of Austrian scientists
• List of Austrians
• List of minor planets named after people

• Alec Eden: Christian Doppler: Leben und Werk. Salzburg: Landespressebureau, 1988. ISBN 3-85015-069-0
• Hoffmann, Robert (2007). The Life of an (almost) Unknown Person. Christian Doppler's Youth in Salzburg and Vienna. In: Ewald Hiebl, Maurizio Musso (Eds.), Christian Doppler – Life and Work. Principle an Applications. Proceedings of the Commemorative Symposia in Salzburg, Salzburg, Prague, Vienna, Venice. Pöllauberg/Austria, Hainault/UK, Atascadero/US, pages 33 – 46.
• David Nolte (2020). The fall and rise of the Doppler effect. Physics Today, v. 73, pgs. 31 - 35. DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.4429

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• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Christian Doppler", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
• Christian Doppler Platform & Christian-Doppler-Fonds