Or Hz as he is more commonly known for his great leap in science and our knowledge of the invisible part of the spectrum, the light spectrum, the wave spectrum or the radio wave spectrum, the invisible waves that are US and OUR environment, increasingly.
While the introduction of wireless radio was a huge leap from copper connected phone and telegram, with far-reaching effects for humanity and technology ( including the Spanish flu?), successive leaps launch us into a soup of so many frequencies only dreamed of.
Heinrich Hertz, like Nikolai Tesla Maxwell and Edison were feeling the vibe and tapping into the opportunities of discovery from the electric field, from the aether.
Of interest and note, Hertz theorized and proved the Photo-electric cell which Albert Einstein subsequently won a Noble Prize for his re-iteration of it in a version that deleted the aether and took science and technology on a quantum physics journey of photons and atoms.
Therefore the Frequency man was very well in tune with the aether but not as attuned to Einstein and the path technology and wave propagation via apparatus and receiving devices, leading us here to 2020 and the clash of these titanic theorems, the consequences of and the opportunity to learn now what it all means, what the Frequency Man said and where its all led as we now spiral to dizzying heights of accelerating frequency, all of them impacting our bodies and environment for benefit or harm depending on the frequency and our sensitivity to it.
This is a brief introduction to Hertz and his wonderful discovery and his contribution to wave science. We will add more Hertz links from readers information and links as well.
Anyone who reads the technical data for loudspeakers will come across values given in hertz (Hz) and kilohertz (kHz). This is how manufacturers indicate a loudspeaker’s frequency range. The ideal system would have a 20/20 range – 20Hz and up to 20 kHz which corresponds to what a young, healthy adult can hear (sadly, our ability to hear the upper frequencies diminishes with age).
Pretty neat that we can nail down numbers like this and then make purchases based on clearly defined specs, and there’s one man who deserves the credit for making this a reality: Heinrich Hertz. Before his hard work and ingenuity, Hertz was merely a last name and no one had the slightest idea as to the scientific underpinnings responsible for differences in pitch.
Heinrich Hertz was born in 1857 to a wealthy family in Hamburg in what was then the German Confederation. In 1880, Hertz received his PhD from the University of Berlin and went on to become a professor of physics in Karlsruhe and Bonn.
Hertz was also involved in research with particular interest in the English scientist James Clerk Maxwell’s theory regarding the interaction between electric and magnetic fields. While static on their own, Maxwell belived they could come together to create something dynamic.
James Clerk Maxwell lays the foundation
In 1865, Maxwell published the paper “A Dynamic Theory of the Electromagnetic Field” positing that when electric and magnetic fields converged they took the form of waves moving through space at the speed of light; and further, that light was, in fact, an expression of electromagnetic waves occurring at a specific wavelength. Maxwell also predicted the existence of radio waves.
Today, exposed to so many benevolent and harmful frequencies, its useful to examine the pre-quantum physics science, in the search of clues, to guide us to a proper understanding of the invisible waves around us and comprising us, and more healthy integration with public and private services, communications, industrial, medical and entertainment.
We owe it to ourselves to know the science and know what science and technology is of benefit and what is of harm to ourselves and our environment.
Hertz opens the door to the practical application of electromagnetic fields
Enter Heinrich Hertz. In 1886, Hertz succeeded in constructing a device that could prove the existence of electromagnetic waves and was even able to determine their varying lengths. In later experiments, Hertz managed to measure the velocity of electromagnetic radiation and discovered it to be the same as the speed of light, as Maxwell expected. By elucidating these and other qualities of electromagnetic waves, Hertz opened the door to research into electromagnetism leading to its practical application in telegraphs, radios, televisions, and, of course, loudspeakers.
In loudspeakers, electromagnetism is used to generate sound that corresponds to the electric charge fed to the system as alternating current. This is the audio signal, an electrical image of the accoustic waveform. When the audio signal is passed through the voice coil, it both creates an electromagnetic field and causes the direction of this field to change rapidly. This in turn makes the coil vibrate with a frequency and intensity determined by the audiosignal. When amplified by a cone, the vibrations create sound waves.
While generated by an electromagnetic field in a loudspeaker, sound does not consist of electromagnetic waves, traveling, as it does, much slower than the speed of light and requiring air as a medium to move. Yet like electromagnetic waves, sound occurs as a series of sine waves, or oscillations with a waveform that can be defined as a sine curve, and so the same measure of frequency – the hertz – can be applied.
Audiophiles can therefore be doubly grateful to Heinrich Hertz: He pointed the way towards the practical applications of electromagnet fields and gave us a way to measure one of the most important aspects of sound.
More Hertz frequency clues relevant today
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves theorized by James Clerk Maxwell‘s electromagnetic theory of light. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the “hertz” in his honor. Take a look below for 30 more weird and interesting facts about Heinrich Hertz.
1. Hertz was born in 1857 in Hamburg, then a sovereign state of the German Confederation, into a prosperous and cultured Hanseatic family.
2. His father, Gustav Ferdinand Hertz, was a barrister and later a senator.
3. His mother was Anna Elisabeth Pfefferkorn.
4. Hertz’s father converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1834.
5. His mother’s family was a Lutheran pastor’s family.
6. While studying at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg, Hertz showed an aptitude for the sciences as well as languages, learning Arabic and Sanskrit.
7. He studied the sciences and engineering in the German cities of Dresden, Munich and Berlin, where he studied under Gustav R. Kirchhoff and Hermann von Helmholtz.
8. In 1880, Hertz obtained his PhD from the University of Berlin, and for the next three years remained for post-doctoral study under Helmholtz, serving as his assistant.
9. In 1883, Hertz took a post as a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Kiel.
10. In 1885, Hertz became a full professor at the University of Karlsruhe.
11. In 1886, Hertz married Elisabeth Doll, the daughter of Dr. Max Doll, a lecturer in geometry at Karlsruhe.
12. He had two daughters: Johanna, born on October 20, 1887, and Mathilde, born on January 14, 1891, who went on to become a notable biologist.
13. Hertz took a position of Professor of Physics and Director of the Physics Institute in Bonn on April 3, 1889, a position he held until January, 1894.
14. During this time, he worked on theoretical mechanics with his work published in the book The Principles of Mechanics Presented in a New Work, published posthumously in 1894.
15. Between 1886 and 1889, Hertz published two papers on contact mechanics that would prove extremely important to the field of electrodynamics.
16. He discovered the photoelectric effect which states that a charged objects loses its charge faster when exposed to ultraviolet light.
17. He didn’t realize the importance and practical implications of his experiments and didn’t foresee their eventual use in wireless communications.
18. It was during his tenure at the University of Bonn that Hertz found that thin metals could be penetrated by cathode rays. It was later developed into the “ray effect.”
19. The Italian Society of Sciences awarded Hertz with the Matteucci Medal in 1888.
20. In 1890, the Royal Society awarded Hertz with the Rumford Medal.
21. Hertz died on January 1, 1894, in Bonn due to granulomatosis with polyangiitis, also known as GPA.
22. Two years prior to his death, he had an operation to cure a migraine but that led to complications that culminated in his death, at the age of 36.
23. When the Nazi regime gained power decades after Hertz’s death, his portrait was removed by them from its prominent position of honor in Hamburg’s City Hall because of his partly Jewish ethnic ancestry.
24. Hertz’s widow and daughters left Germany in the 1930s and went to England.
25. Hertz’s nephew, Gustav Ludwig Hertz, was a Nobel Prize winner, and Gustav’s son, Carl Helmut Hertz, invented medical ultrasonography.
26. His grandnephew, Hermann Gerhard Hertz, professor at the University of Karlsruhe, was a pioneer of NMR-spectroscopy and in 1995 published Hertz’s laboratory notes.
27. In 1928, the Heinrich-Hertz Institute for Oscillation Research was founded in Berlin.
28. In 1969, a Heinrich Hertz memorial medal was cast. The IEEE Heinrich Hertz Medal, established in 1987, is “for outstanding achievement sin Hertzian waves … presented annually to an individual for achievements which are theoretical or experimental in nature.”
29. A crater that lies on the far side of the Moon, just behind the eastern limb, is named in his honor.
30. Hertz is honored in Japan with a membership in the Order of the Sacred Treasure, which has multiple layers of honor for prominent people, including scientists
To put these magnetic forces measured as Hertz -Hz and Kz, into a more digestible context, below is a useful commentary on these invisible forces in relation to the health effect.