HEINRICH HERTZ: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS - HISTORY - 2024

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was a physicist and engineer born in Hamburg (Germanic Confederation) on February 22, 1857. He died very young, on January 1, 1894, before reaching 37 years of age. Despite this, he made outstanding contributions to science, including those that led Marconi to build a radio station.

Some other contributions of his research are those related to the photoelectric effect. The importance of his work made his name the chosen one to measure the frequency.

In this way, Hertz, or Hertz in most languages, became part of the scientific language in recognition of the contributions of this scientist.

Biography of Heinrich Hertz

Childhood and first years of study

Hertz was born in Hamburg in 1857, the son of Gustav Hertz and Anna Elizabeth Pfefferkom. Although the father was of Jewish origin, all the brothers born of the marriage were educated in the mother's religion, Lutheranism.

The family enjoyed a good financial position, since the father was a lawyer and even became a senator for the city.

Heinrich began to excel very early in his studies. In fact, at the age of six, he entered a prestigious private school, where he became the most outstanding student. His skills not only stayed in the theoretical part of the subject, but he also had great talent in the practical part.

In the same way, he had a great facility for the study of foreign languages, receiving classes even in Arabic.

University and first jobs

Already in 1872, at the age of 15, he entered the Johanneum Gymnasium and, apart, received technical drawing classes. Three years later, young Hertz was ready to think about college. In order to better face the exams to access higher studies, he moved to the city of Frankfurt.

Finally, he began his engineering career, although he did not put aside his other great passion: physics. For this reason, a few years later, he moved to Berlin to study this subject. It can be said that it was the union of his knowledge in both disciplines that gave him success in his research.

At just 23 years old, in 1880, he obtained his doctorate thanks to a celebrated thesis on the rotation of spheres in a magnetic field. Thanks to this, he continued as a student and assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz, another physicist in the country. Already in 1883, he began working at the University of Kiel as a professor.

Death

When he was at the peak of his career, in 1889, Hertz began to have serious health problems. The truth is that he continued working until the end of his days, but finally the granulomatosis he suffered caused his death. He died in Bonn, Germany, at just 36 years old.

Scientific contributions

Berlin Academy of Sciences Award

Contrary to other scientists, to whom the awards come when they already have a lot of experience and a known name in their community, Hertz was awarded early in his career and, in fact, the award was one of the drivers of it.

It all started when he was still in Berlin, developing his work with Helmholrz. He told him about an award he could aspire to, awarded by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. It was about trying to demonstrate in a practical way, through an experiment, the so-called Maxwell equations.

This British scientist had developed a study in which he theoretically demonstrated the existence of "electromagnetic waves". His theory only existed as a mathematical calculation, but many researchers in Europe were trying to carry out the experiment that could confirm it.

In any case, it seems that Heinrich Hertz originally thought that the proof of the theory was not possible, so for a time he did not even work for it.

Only when the Dutch Lorentz began to try to win the award, coinciding with the fact that Hertz changed jobs and cities in 1885, did the German begin his investigations.

At the University of Karlsruhe, where he worked as a professor of physics, he also finds better technical means, which is of great help to him in achieving success.

Proof of Maxwell's Equations

After two years of work in Karlsruhe, Hertz succeeded in demonstrating experimentally the validity of Maxwell's theories. To do this, he only needed a few materials, mainly metallic wires connected to an oscillating circuit.

He placed the threads in a ring shape, with a very small distance between them. In this way, it turned them into a receiving station capable of receiving electromagnetic currents and causing tiny sparks.

Thus, he confirmed not only the existence of waves, but that they propagate at the speed of light, sharing many characteristics of this.

Practical uses of the Hertz discovery

Hertz's work in this area contributed to the invention of the wireless telegraph and radio. Thus, Marconi, an Italian physicist, used wave experiments to build a device capable of transmitting impulses.

In 1901, he managed to get one of these impulses to cross the Atlantic Ocean, inaugurating wireless transmissions.

A little later, the same would happen with radio, for which they also relied on the work carried out by Hertz.

Photoelectric effect

Despite his early death, Hertz also discovered the so-called photoelectric effect. This discovery was made in 1887, placing two electrodes together at high voltage.

When he observed the arc between the two electrodes, he realized that it reached a greater distance if ultraviolet light was applied to it and less if the surroundings were left in the dark.

This showed that electrons from a metal surface can escape under certain short-wave light conditions.

Tributes

The main tribute science has paid to Hertz is the use of its name as a unit of measurement for frequency. Besides, there is a lunar crater and an asteroid named after his surname.

References

1. Biographies and Lives. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Obtained from biografiasyvidas.com
2. Just Science. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Obtained from solociencia.com
3. EcuRed. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Obtained from ecured.cu
4. Famous Scientists. Heinrich Hertz. Retrieved from famousscientists.org
5. Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University. Heinrich Rudolph Hertz. Retrieved from micro.magnet.fsu.edu
6. Heinrichrhertz. Contributions - Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Retrieved from heinrichrhertz.weebly.com
7. Harvard University. Heinrich Hertz's Wireless Experiment (1887). Retrieved from people.seas.harvard.edu