HEINRICH HERTZ - 359 



of 'electric waves,' with their properties as clearly predicted 

 by the theory. 



If these waves could be generated and proved to exist, 

 and if they possessed the required properties, there would 

 be no further elements of doubt in the theory, and it could 

 then be used as a safe guide in dealing with further questions. 

 Hertz approached this goal, which in spite of all previous 

 work was in his time still very obscure or indeed invisible, 

 gradually at first, but finally at surprising speed, and showed 

 that it not only actually existed, but was easily attainable with 

 full certainty.^ 



At the same time, therefore, he had opened up a new world 

 of phenomena and placed it at our disposal; he thus became 

 the discoverer of electric waves and 'rays of electric force' 

 (1888). The results of all this with regard to our knowledge 

 of nature will be indicated further on; what resulted in the 

 way of applications is more than well enough known to-day 

 from wireless and broadcasting. ^ We will describe the 



1 It is very noteworthy that in the fifteen years between Maxwell's pub- 

 lication of his work On Electricity and Magnetism and Hertz's discoveries, 

 a great deal had been written about 'Maxwell's theory' and in particular 

 concerning the electro-magnetic theory of light, and these subjects had 

 been lectured upon at universities, yet not even the beginning of a way to 

 the goal had been made clear, for people simply played about with Max- 

 well's equations, but not with the ideas of Maxwell or Faraday; it was a 

 mathematical game and not scientific research that was pursued, and the 

 results were sterile. Hertz was the first who not only understood the 

 equations, and knew how to deal with them mathematically when neces- 

 sary, but also saw the structure of ideas upon which they were based by 

 their originator, and understood how to move about in it. The equa- 

 tions are, so to speak, merely ground plans of this structure, and are far 

 from being actual inhabitable apartments; the latter can only be pro- 

 duced by the architect, who knows how to grasp the ideas which have 

 been put into the ground plan. 



2 The telephone was invented by a Frankfurt teacher of physics, 

 Philipp Reis, in i860; it was only perfected considerably later, though this 

 might have happened more quickly considering the state of scientific 

 knowledge at the time. To-day, when there are plenty of scientifically 

 educated technicians available, almost everything which the progress of 

 science offers us is at once practically applied, as we see in the 'art' of 

 broadcasting. 



