HERTZ, Heinrich.

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Untersuchungen ueber die Ausbreitung der Elektrischen Kraft. First collected edition of Hertz's papers on electromagnetic waves. They include "experimental proof by Hertz of the Faraday-Maxwell hypothesis that electromagnetic waves can be projected through space" (PMM). The practical applications of Hertz's theories were pursued by Marconi, leading to the development of airwave technology.James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory, developed in the 1860s, hypothesized that all electromagnetic phenomena produced waves, not just light. To prove this experimentally, one had to discover a method of artificially producing the waves and also a method of detecting them once produced. To solve the first problem, Hertz used the oscillatory discharge of a condenser, and for the second, he induced the waves to produce an electric spark at varying distances from the oscillator, thereby proving that the waves were moving through space. "This discovery and its demonstration led directly to radio communication, television, and radar" (Dibner 71).The papers first appeared in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie between 1887 and 1890.

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