Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) was a German physicist who made significant contributions to the field of electromagnetism. He is best known for his experiments that confirmed James Clerk Maxwell's theories about electromagnetic waves. Hertz was the first to produce and detect these waves in the laboratory, demonstrating that they could travel through space and confirming that they behave similarly to light waves. The unit of frequency, the "hertz" (Hz), is named in his honor.
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Heinrich Hertz made electromagnetic waves experimentally accessible using electrical oscillators and a receiving loop with a small spark gap. The receiver's sparks supplied a local readout whose dependence on orientation, position and reflecting surfaces could be investigated. The resulting interference and polarization tests connected the apparatus with a wave description of the field. His collected papers also discuss limitations of early propagation measurements and specify the geometry and controls used to interpret the observations.[ref]
Electric Waves: Being Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action with Finite Velocity through Space by Heinrich Hertz. 1893 collected translation, Introduction pp. 9–12; papers VII–VIII, pp. 107–109 and 125–127
Homepage: www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/heinrich-hertz
Portrait of Heinrich Hertz
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