THE MAN WHO PROVED THE EXISTENCE OF THE INVISIBLE

Table of Contents

HEINRICH HERTZ

James Clerk Maxwell had propounded the theory of electromagnetic radiation, and wrote an equations for electromagnetism without any proof. In 1887, Hertz did what James Clerk Maxwell had only theorized, he wanted to proof that the invisible existed. He generated and detected electromagnetic waves in a laboratory. Using a spark-gap transmitter and a loop of wire as a receiver, he demonstrated that invisible waves could travel through space at the speed of light. It was one of the most elegant experiments in the history of science, simple apparatus, universe-shaking result.

Maxwell's equations had predicted these waves mathematically in the 1860s, but Hertz made them real about three decades later, he unlocked something no one ever thought possible.

Guglielmo Marconi read Hertz's papers in 1894, by 1901 he had transmitted a signal across the Atlantic. Every broadcast, every wireless signal, every satellite ping traces back to that spark-gap apparatus.

Every technology relating to electromagnetic wave technology, and photoelectricity, from television, radar, WiFi, cellular networks, are all children of Hertz's discovery. Ironically, Hertz himself never saw any of this. When asked whether his discovery might have practical applications, he reportedly said it was of no use whatsoever, just a proof that Maxwell was right.

In 1894, Hertz died of a blood infection, aged 36, before Marconi sent his first wireless signal less than a decade later. He never lived to hear a radio, see a television, or know that his name would become the universal unit of frequency "hertz" attached to every transmitting, and oscillating technology, including every computer ever built.

Hertz did not set out to connect the world, he just wanted to know if the waves were real. That curiosity, that pure drive to find out, ended up rewiring civilization. Every phone call, every Wi-Fi packet, every radar ping is, in a very literal sense, Hertz's legacy still traveling through the air.

365 men who changed the world.

Kamikun John, Author 366 days of wisdom.