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The
Birth of Wireless Communication: |
| “Experimental proof
by Hertz of the Faraday-Maxwell hypothesis that electrical waves can be
projected through space was begun in 1887, eight years after Maxwell’s
death. The two main requirements were (a) a method of producing the
waves, supposing that they existed, and (b) a method of detecting them
once they were produced. Hertz found the first problem easy to solve. He
used the oscillatory discharge of a condenser. Detection was much more
difficult, because there then existed no means of detecting currents
alternating at the high speed of these waves. Hertz in fact used an
effect as old as the discovery of electricity itself- the electric
spark. By inducing the waves to produce an electrical spark at a
distance, with no apparent connection between the oscillator and the
spark gap, and by moving the sparking apparatus so that the length of
the spark varied, Hertz proved beyond question the passage of electric
waves through space… The experiments were reported periodically from
1887 onward in Annalen der Physik und Chemie” (PMM 377). In the
important first paper of his study, Hertz describes the ingenious apparatus
he had devised to produce, detect, and measure the electromagnetic
waves, the key to all his later discoveries. |
“This discovery and its demonstration led directly to radio communication, television and radar” (Dibner, Heralds of Science, 71). |
| Hertz, Heinrich. “Uber
sehr schnelle electrische Schwingungen” [with] Nachtrag zu der
Abhandlung uber sehr schnelle electrische Schwingungen, pp. 421-448 and
543-544 in Annalen der Physik und Chemie, Vol. 31. Leipzig: Johann Barth,
1887. Octavo, modern calf.
First editions, first printings, of Hertz's first two papers on electromagnetic waves. Fine condition, handsomely bound. Also see: First edition in English of Hertz's Electric Waves |
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