22 February 2012
Google Doodle celebrates Heinrich Hertz
Google has commemorated the 155th birth date of Heinrich Hertz by replacing its home page logo with an animated image of waves on a graph.
The Google Doodle waves represent the German physicist's pioneering work on electromagnetic waves.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was the first person to prove the existence of electromagnetic waves, which eventually led to the development of the wireless telegraph, radio and television.
Hertz was born in Hamburg in 1857 and by the age of 22 had obtained a PhD on electromagnetic induction in rotating spheres at the University of Berlin. By 1884, Hertz was a professor at the University of Karlsruhe, where he discovered electromagnetic waves. Using a high voltage induction coil, a condenser and a spark gap for his radio wave transmitter and a crude receiver made of copper and brass, he was able to prove that radiation was emitted.
More advanced experiments concluded that electromagnetic radiation has the same velocity and reflection and refraction properties as light. The finding clarified and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light that had been previously forwarded by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
Hertz died in Bonn in 1894 aged 36 after contracting Wegener's granulomatosis, a rare disorder in which blood vessels become inflamed.
In 1930, the unit of frequency hertz (Hz) was named in his honour.
Author
Chris Shaw
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