Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

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HEINRICH RUDOLF HERTZ Ian Cummings Physics Ms. Medina Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was a German physicist born February 22, 1857 in Hamburg, a sovereign state of the German Confederation. His father, David Hertz, was a writer and senator that made his name as a prosperous and cultured family man. His mother’s name was Anna Pfefferkorn. In his youth Heinrich enjoyed all the time he had free from school building instruments in the family workshop. While studying at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg, he showed an aptitude for sciences and engineering as well as languages, learning Arabic and Sanskrit before going to college. Hertz began his college studies at the University of Munich. After a short time he transferred to the University of Berlin, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree magna cum laude. In Berlin he was an assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz, one of the foremost physicists of the time. In 1883 Hertz became a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Kiel. Two years later he was appointed professor of physics at Karlsruhe Polytechnic. In the 1880s physicists were trying to obtain experimental evidence of electromagnetic waves. Their existence had been predicted in 1873 by the mathematical equations of James Clerk Maxwell, a British scientist. In 1887 Hertz tested Maxwell's hypothesis. He used an oscillator made of polished brass knobs, each connected to an induction coil and separated by a tiny gap over which sparks could leap. Hertz reasoned that, if Maxwell's predictions were correct, electromagnetic waves would be transmitted during each series of sparks. To confirm this, Hertz made a simple receiver of looped wire. At the ends of the loop were small knobs separated by a tiny gap. The receiver was placed several yards from the oscillator. According to theory, if electromagnetic waves were spreading from

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