Doppler Effect 2 Homework: Calculating Distance of Police Car from Ambulance

AI Thread Summary
The problem involves calculating the distance between a police car and an ambulance using the time taken for sound to travel between them. The ambulance travels at 84.0 km/h with a siren frequency of 1.7 kHz, while the police car moves at 80.0 km/h with a siren frequency of 3.2 kHz. The sound takes 0.15 seconds to travel to the ambulance and back. The solution simplifies to calculating the distance sound travels in that time and dividing by two, resulting in a distance of 25.9 meters. This exercise primarily focuses on basic distance calculations rather than the Doppler effect.
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Homework Statement



An ambulance is traveling at 84.0 km/h. The ambulance has a siren which produces sound at a frequency of 1.7 kHz. Assume the speed of sound in air is 345.0 m/s.

A police car is traveling at a constant speed of 80.0 km/h directly towards the ambulance. The police car has a siren which produces sound at a frequency 3.2 kHz. The sound from the siren reflects off the ambulance. If the time taken for the sound of the siren to travel from the police car to the ambulance and back again is 0.15 s, how far is the police car from the ambulance at this moment? (You can neglect the distance the police car has moved in this time)

Homework Equations



General Doppler-shift expression: f'=\left( \frac{v+v_o}{v-v_s}\right) f

The Attempt at a Solution



The answer is 25.9 meters, but I've absolutely no idea what strategy to use in this problem. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
 
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Lol :D That doesn't have to do anything with a Doppler effect. Well, the answer given it seems to be a very simplified exercise-just calculate the distance that a sound wave makes in 0.15 s and divide it by 2 (there and back againg :)).
 
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