HERTZ, H. (HEINRICH RUDOLF). - THE BIRTH OF RADIO-COMMUNICATION, TELEVISON AND RADAR

Ueber sehr schnelle electrische Schwingungen. (+) Nachtrag zu der Abhandlung über sehr Schnelle electrische Schwingungen.

Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1887. Without wrappers as issued in "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg. von G. Wiedemann.", Neue Folge Bd. 31, 7. Heft. With the titlepage to vol. 31. Pp. 337-544 a. 2 folded plates, (entire issue offered "Heft" 7). Hertz's paper: pp. 421-448 A. PP. 543-544. A Stamp on titlepage and verso of. Clean and fine.

First edition of Hertz's seminal paper on electromagnetic waves in which he empirically demonstrates Maxwell's equations. This discovery and its demonstration led directly to the invention radio of communication, television and Radar. The paper is the "ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE PRODUCTION BY ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE OF WAVES WHICH HAVE THE PROPERTY OF VERY LONG WAVES"(H.M. Evans).

Hertz demonstrates what Maxwell had predicted that electromagnetic waves radiated in space with the speed of light. Hertz determined these waves to be of greater length than light and that they could be reflected.

"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." (PMM, 377.). In the present paper Hertz "describes the apparatus that he had devised for the detection and measurement of electromagnetic waves, the key to his later success. To prove that electromagnetic waves can be projected through space it was necessary to devise a means of both producing the waves and, more difficult at the time, of detecting them once produced." (Norman Library, No. 1123).

"Hertz's researches on electrical waves vindicated the Helmholtz ideal of the physicist as one whose competences embraced both experiment and mathematics. Hertz entered physics at the right time for one of his abilities to make a critical contribution; because the outstanding problem of physics was the disorderly condition of electrodynamics, what was needed was someone with the theoretical power to analyze the competing theories and with the experimental judgment to produce the evidence that would persuade the physical community that a decision between the theories had been reached." (DSB, VI, 348b.)

"In the early 1890's the young inventor Guglielmo Marconi read of Hertz's electric wave experiments in an Italian electrical journal and began considering the Possibility of communication by wireless waves. Hertz's work initiated a technological development as momentous as it physical counterpart." (DSB, VI, 349a.).

Order-nr.: 44842