History of telecommunications- Hertz page 503

Heinrich Heinrich, Rudolph Hertz was born in Hamburg, on 22 February 1857, in one of the most illustrious families in the city, the father Gustav, of Jewish origin, was a lawyer and a man of culture. Since childhood shows a passion and an extraordinary propensity for the construction of small instruments and devices; learns techniques metal working and wood and follows specific mechanical drawing classes. Hertz will use this technical training in the performance of his experimental research. Finished the Gymnasium, prevailing interest for the technical-scientific disciplines, led him to choose the Faculty of Engineering. Played military service, he chose to devote himself completely to university research: between 1877 and 1878 spent a whole year at Monaco refining their knowledge of mathematics and following courses at the Technical Institute, which undertakes research experimental physics. The 1878 he moved to the University of Berlin to complete their training in the prestigious physics laboratory directed by Hermann von Helmholtz, whose address research was known at the time for the close combination of experimental research and development theory. The natural talent and solid preparation allow Hertz to get in light within the academic Berlin, a notice is the same von Helmholtz who do not hesitate to follow the young student personally encourage the ingenuity and encouraging their career. The career Hertz proceed in stages very fast on 1880 1883 the Prussian Ministry of Education leads to achieve the freedom of teaching in Kiel, with the prospect of a subsequent promotion; in Easter 1885 is called as a professor of Physics at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe, where the completion of its research into electromagnetic waves. Karlsruhe wife Elisabeth Doll, the daughter of a colleague. The second half of 1889 accepted the post of Professor of Physics at the University of Bonn. In the years following numerous awards obtained by the Academies and institutes across Europe in 1888 the Italian Society of Sciences gives medal Matteucci, in 1889 the Academies of Sciences in Paris gives the prize La Caze, and the Vienna Akademie KK Baumgarten the prize, in 1890 the Royal Society gives medal Rumford. The Academies of Berlin, Monaco, Vienna, Gottingen, Rome, Turin and Bologna, elect a corresponding member, and the Prussian government gives the order of the Crown. Even after the historic discovery of electromagnetic waves, built between 1886 and 1888, which makes him famous and contended, Hertz remains a calm and reserved man, also rejects the chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin, to be able to free continue its activities intensely and without external pressure. Helmholtz remembers him well in the preface to the "Principles": Heinrich Hertz has ensured through its discoveries an imperishable glory in science. But his memory not only survive through its work: all those who knew him will remain unforgettable for the kind of you character, its immutable modesty, his warm recognition of the work of others,
sincere gratitude for his teachers. For him there was enough work for the truth, that truth which pursued with every effort, he never prevailed in the slightest trace of lust for glory or personal interest. Friends and colleagues remember the silent nature and dodging, reluctant to claim the merits of a discovery or intuition; observant and acute, but not sparing judgments disapproval and indignation against studies conducted or negligently performed. Struck by incurable bone disease, as early as November 1892 its terms become very precarious, but Hertz continue teaching university. In recent years he devoted himself entirely to draft a general re mechanics, giving life to Prinzipien der Mechanic [They mechanics] Despite the illness, which sometimes forces him to slow down and suspend their studies, Hertz can finalize l ' work; letters written to friends testify to his intention to review and develop complete some parts, only tentative, especially the second book, but the progress of the disease held them Hertz died on the first of January 1894.

Heinrich Rudolph Hertz