Physicist — Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857–1894) was a German physicist, born in Hamburg and a pupil of Hermann von Helmholtz in Berlin. Between 1886 and 1889, at the University of Karlsruhe, he succeeded in producing and detecting electromagnetic waves in the laboratory for the first time, experimentally confirming Maxwell’s theoretical predictions. He showed that such waves propagate at the speed of light and behave like light under reflection, refraction and polarisation, thereby unifying optics and electromagnetism. He also observed the photoelectric effect, which would only be explained later by Einstein. He died very young, at 36; in his honour the unit of frequency is called the hertz.
Trivia
Asked about the practical applications of his waves, he replied that he saw none; a few years later Marconi would use them to invent radio.
Theories and contributions
- Electromagnetic waves — First experimental production and detection of the waves predicted by Maxwell, propagating at the speed of light .
- Photoelectric effect (observation) — He noticed that ultraviolet light facilitates the electric discharge between electrodes, the first hint of the phenomenon later explained by Einstein.
Present in chapters
Linked atoms
4 linked atoms.
19 Le equazioni di Maxwell e le onde elettromagnetiche
- Sources of EM waves and Hertz’s experiment
- Dipole antenna
- Maxwell and unification: when c emerges from the equations