If one is asked to name the most significant scientific achievement of the modern age, many items could come to mind. But few people would mention the artificial production of electromagnetic waves among them. And yet, the revolutionary impact of this achievement is incalculable. It is fair to say that no other scientific creation has had a great impact on the face of human civilization in the modern era.
Since the first Big Bang of Cosmic creation—or in the terminology of the Judeo-Christian tradition, since God first pronounced Fiat lux!—the universe has been inundated by electromagnetic waves, which are as omnipresent as the God of any religion. But it was not until the nineteenth century of the Common Era that these were consciously produced by human beings. The credit for this goes to Heinrich Hertz (born 22 February 1857).
Hertz was a brilliant student who completed his studies when still very young. He had an uncanny ability to manipulate and device gadgets. He enjoyed physics and was familiar with the theory of J. C. Maxwell according to which there exist electromagnetic waves, of which visible light was an example. This was a revolutionary theory in many ways, but it was a few decades before such waves were actually produced and detected (by Hertz) in a laboratory.
This happened in a simple classroom at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe with the most meager instruments. The first electromagnetic waves were generated in 1888 by the discharge of a condenser through a loop with a spark gap and were detected with a very similar device. Hertz had, in fact, produced and transmitted electromagnetic waves from one spot to another. This is at the very basis of all complex communication systems in today’s world.
There is a story to the effect that Hertz’s students were very impressed by what their professor had done and wondered aloud what its applications would be. Hertz, perhaps out of modesty, made what may be regarded as the most serious blunder in predictions in all of history. “It is of no use whatever,” he is said to have told his students. But he did rejoice over the fact that he had experimentally verified Maestro Maxwell’s theory.
Indeed, a noteworthy aspect of Hertz’s experiment is that is a historic example of an experiment verifying the existence of something that was predicted by a theory. A good theory in physics not only explains observed phenomena but also predicts or reveals the existence of as yet unknown or unobserved phenomena.
But it took some more years before Guglielmo Marconi would succeed in using Hertz’s discovery for sending telegraphic messages without wires. The rest is history. Wireless telegraphy led to radio communication, then television, and then to all kinds of other applications of artificially generated electromagnetic waves.
Sadly, Hertz died at the age of thirty-seven of blood poisoning. It has been recorded. He did not live to see the enormous impact that his modest experiment on the course of human civilization. He is remembered as a very unassuming and amiable man, loved and respected by all who came to know him. His interests went beyond his field of specialization. He is said to have studied languages as varied as Arabic and Sanskrit.
Another remarkable effect of our capacity to generate electromagnetic waves is that we have sent signals from earth into outer space. Should there be other intelligent and technologically advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe—not an improbability—they would become aware of our existence.
Spurts of Thought 