Hertz was the one that gave the Italian Marconi the idea to try radio
transmission accross the Atlantic.
http://www.wsone.com/fecha/hertz.htm
Heinrich Hertz
Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist who was born in 1857 and died of
blood poisoning in 1894 at the age of 37,
applied Maxwell's theories to the production and reception of radio
waves. In recognition of his work, the unit of
frequency of a radio wave -- one cycle per second -- is named the
hertz, in honor of Heinrich Hertz.
In 1888, in a corner of his physics classroom at the Karlsruhe
Polytechnic in Berlin, Hertz generated electric
waves by means of the oscillatory discharge of a condenser through
a loop provided with a spark gap, and then
detecting them with a similar type of circuit. Hertz's condenser
was a pair of metal rods, placed end to end with a
small gap for a spark between them. When these rods were given
charges of opposite signs, strong enough to
spark, the current would oscillate back and forth across the gap
and along the rods. With this oscillator, Hertz
solved two problems: 1) timing Maxwell's waves (he had
demonstrated, in the concrete, what Maxwell had only
theorized: that the velocity of radio waves was equal to the
velocity of light), and 2) how to make the electric and
magnetic fields detach themselves from wires and go free as
Maxwell's waves.
Hertz's students were impressed, and wondered what use might be
made of this marvelous phenomenon. But
Hertz thought his discoveries were no more practical than
Maxwell's. "It's of no use whatsoever," he replied. "This
is just an experiment that proves Maestro Maxwell was right -- we
just have these mysterious electromagnetic
waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there."
"So, what next?" asked one of his students at the University of
Bonn.
Hertz shrugged. He was a modest man, of no pretensions and,
apparently, little ambition. "Nothing, I guess."
But, even at a theoretical level, Hertz's accomplishments were
quickly seen by others as the beginning of a new
"electric age." The English mathematical physicist, Sir. Oliver
Heaviside, said in 1891, "Three years ago,
electromagnetic waves were nowhere. Shortly afterward, they were
everywhere."
Summing up Hertz's importance: his experiments dealing with the
reflection, refraction, polarization, interference
and velocity of electric waves would trigger the invention, soon
after, of the wireless telegraph and of radio.
It happened this way: in 1888, Hertz described in an electrical
journal how he was able to trigger his
electromagnetic waves with his oscillator. A young man in his teens
happened to read the article while he was
vacationing in the Alps. For him, Hertz's discovery gave him an
idea: why not use the waves set off by Hertz's
spark oscillator for signaling? Guglielmo Marconi was that young
man. He rushed back home to Italy to give the
idea a try.
When Hertz died in Bonn, Germany, in 1894, Sir Oliver Lodge gave
Hertz credit for accomplishing what the
great English physicists of the time were unable to do. It was not
hard to give Hertz credit. Not only had he
established the validity of Maxwell's theorems, he had done so with
a winning modesty. "He was a noble man,"
said one eulogist in 1894, "who had the singular good fortune to
find many admirers, but none to hate or envy him;
those who came into personal contact with him were struck by his
modesty and charmed by his amiability. He
was a true friend to his friends, a respected teacher to his
students, who had begun to gather around him in large
numbers, some of the coming from great distances; and to his family
a loving husband and father."
Yann Weber wrote:
>
> === The original message was multipart MIME ===
> === All non-text parts (attachments) have been removed ===
>
> >>It is still used as shorthand, and it means Hertz now.
> >
> >I don't the sound of it, sounds to Nazi to me.
>
> I'm sure people with german sounding names will highly
> appreciate such an intelligent remark. Especially regarding
> Heinrich Hertz who was Jewish.
>
> Yann
> ______________________________________________________
> Bo=EEte aux lettres - Caramail - http://www.caramail.com
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
> "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Jim Coon
Not just another pretty mandolin picker.
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If Gibson made cars, would they sound so sweet?
My first web page
http://www.tir.com/~liteways
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
"unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
