The discussion clarifies that the light Doppler effect is not solely a relativistic phenomenon but also has classical roots. It emphasizes that when considering the classical limit, the light Doppler effect can be understood through Huygens' principle, leading to a frequency shift analogous to that of sound waves. The relativistic Doppler effect incorporates time dilation, resulting in the frequency observed by a receiver differing from that emitted by the source. This relationship is mathematically expressed as the classical Doppler effect multiplied by the time dilation factor.
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The light Doppler effect is basically just like the classical one but with the added complication that the source's clock is running slow in the frame of the receiver, so the frequency at which the source is emitting pulses/peaks in its own frame is different from the frequency at which the source is emitting pulses/peaks in the receiver's frame. See my post #15 here (along with #18 on the same thread) for a derivation of the fact that relativistic Doppler is just classical Doppler multiplied by the time dilation factor.wdlang said:is the light doppler effect a purely relativistic effect?
or it is present even in the classical limit?