Google pays homage to Heinrich Hertz as they celebrated his 155th birthday last year.
Heinrich's experiment proved Maxwell's theory of light traveling in waves
He went on to further this investigation by building a receiver. A second instrument was made of a curved wire that created a circle, but left a tiny gap at the top. When he placed the transmitter and receiver apart, he also made sure that there was nothing connecting the two together. Heinrich continued by initiating the observation, which led to a spark being shot through the transmitter that lit up sparks on the receiver. This demonstrated invisible waves that traveled through the air. Another observation Hertz made was that these newly found waves traveled at the speed of light and could be reflected or pass through materials.
Heinrich Hertz received a large amount of recognition for the completion of his experiment
A physics teacher Paul Anderson goes into detail of the Hertz experiment offering a visual presentation of what Hertz conducted.
Judaism almost caused Heinrich to lose all of his accomplishments
Sadly, Heinrich's fame came at a bad time. Although he was German, Hertz was a Lutheran whose father was raised as a Jew. Because of this, the Nazis wanted to erase Heinrich from history. The Hertz family was forced to flee Germany because the Nazis considered them to be Jewish. A member of the Nazi group tried to change the term 'Hertz' to 'Helmholtz,' the name of Heinrich's teacher. This would still keep the original abbreviation of 'Hz,' but erase the Jew's relation to the term. The Nazis failed, as German scientist did not want to proceed with the name change.
Heinrich left a legacy of success behind him after his death
After Heinrich's death at age 36, he left a legacy that would impact the world. His nephew Gustav Hertz was a Nobel Prize winner and his son Carl Hertz created medical ultrasonography. Hertz also has a crater located on the eastern limb of the Moon named after him. He was also recognized in Japan with the membership of the Order of the Sacred Treasure. Who would've known that someone who proved an invisible phenomenon to be true, would've had so much of an impact on the world.
Julie Fricke
ReplyDelete2/17/13
Analysis of Jourdyn’s ePortfolio post “Heinrich Hertz Proves the Existence of Radio Waves, All Thanks to James Maxwell”:
The introductory paragraph was very clear and concise and was a good segway into the rest of your post. By explaining the contributions of James Maxwell, you were able to transition nicely to the accomplishments of Heinrich Hertz. Specifically, I liked how you mentioned that Hertz tried to finish the problem that Maxwell had posed with his early theories: that other scientists and observers were skeptical because they couldn’t see the waves with a naked eye. This seems to relate to the overall advancement of technology over the past few decades. Many ideas, such as this one and areas of developmental psychology for example, couldn’t come into fruition because the theories were ahead of their time. It was only until technology caught up – like research methods and data analysis techniques – could the ideas truly be substantiated. Maxwell was able to create an experiment that allowed individuals to see a spark of “invisible” waves.
You did a great job of effectively explaining the experiment and the specific tools that Hertz used to complete it. By including the picture, I was able to get an accurate visual representation of the instrument he constructed. As I am not a science person, the visual aid really helped me understand your explanation of the experiment. I also would have mentioned, however, how other scientists and educators reacted to Hertz’s innovation. Was his experiment readily accepted and did it automatically change the way individuals looked at waves, electricity, and the speed of light? You mentioned in your post that Hertz became a household name years later, so it may have taken a little while for him to spread his findings. Once his theories were accepted and realized by fellow physicists, he was able to initiate further research on waves, and the International Electrotechnical Commission even named a frequency after him (Hz).
I liked that you included the cultural impacts on Hertz and how it affected his research because it is now a perspective that we usually include with technological advancement. It is interesting how external factors, such as religion and ethnicity, can impact science. It goes to show just how far we’ve come as a country in the last few decades. The Nazis desperately wanted to disconnect Hertz and his research with his Jewish heritage. The Germans tried to change his last name and forced him to escape Germany altogether. With that much resistance, I would think it was very difficult to remain committed to his work.
Although the conclusion was a nice wrap-up, I would have liked to learn why he died at age 36. On his Wikipedia site, it says he died from Wegener’s granulomatosis. It was a good point to include his son’s achievement as well to his a reference to his family members. Overall, I thought your post was very informative and well written. I hadn’t known much about Hertz before reading and now I feel I have a pretty good understanding of his major accomplishments.