Letter: Physics and tragedy

I was saddened to read about an 11-year-old boy who narrowly escaped death at the train tracks pedestrian walk in Mount Prospect. The boy had enough sense to jump off his bike just before the train would have killed him.

My wife and I lost a dear friend in February at the same pedestrian railroad crossing. She had a heart of gold. Sob. A railroad engine sounds very loud in a static position. When the train is moving toward you, it sounds like a lightweight vehicle until it is extremely close to you. This is called the Doppler effect.

Doppler was a name of a real person in the mid 1800s. He discovered that when a train moves toward you, sound waves change their pitch as the train approaches and then passes you. With all of the smart people who read this newspaper, this important railroad fact is never discussed. This is part of the laws of physics.

Floyd Freeman

Hoffman Estates