Happy Birthday Hertz!

Heinrich R. Hertz born in 1857 was a genius of his time. He is what many of us invasion as a steampunk scientist.  He proved that there are these unseen things called radio waves.  We wouldn’t have FM, AM, SW or XM without him. He used a series of experience to prove it.  You need to think for a moment, this is before the gasoline engine, electric light and everyone still ride horses.

-[From Christian Science Monitor] In his lab, the German scientist rigged up two tiny brass spheres, placed very close to one another. When he electrified them, sparks leaped from one ball to the other. If Maxwell was correct, these sparks should send invisible waves radiating through the air. To test the theory, he needed to build a receiver. This second instrument consisted of a curved wire that almost made a full circle, except for a tiny gap at the top. He placed the transmitter and the receiver several yards apart and made sure that nothing connected the two. Sure enough, when sparks shot through the transmitter, invisible waves traveled through the air, lighting up new sparks on the receiver.

By allowing the world to finally see these invisible forces, Hertz became famous. The International Electrotechnical Commission decided in 1930 that his name would become a unit of frequency. The hertz (or Hz) measures “cycles per second.” For example, a 60 Hz TV runs at up to 60 frames per second.-

So take some time and thank Hertz for the modern world.