Heinrich Hertz Quotes

Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored.” Heinrich Hertz’ Keynote Address at the Imperial Palace, Berlin, August, 1891

...the question as to the nature of force will not have been answered; but our minds, no longer vexed, will cease to ask illegitimate questions.

One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.

German physicist Heinrich Hertz had shown that the only real difference among the various kinds of light is the frequency of the waves in each band.

One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers.

Ultimately, no amount of opposition could stifle Tesla’s creative powers. Enthused by his discoveries with X-rays, he devoted his energies to the realm of high-frequency electricity. Two decades earlier, James Clerk Maxwell had proven mathematically that light was electromagnetic radiation—electricity that was vibrating at an extremely high frequency. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz had confirmed that an electric spark emits electromagnetic waves. Tesla knew that this unexplored territory would yield astounding

In honors physics, I learned that Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell observed how electrical fields and magnetic fields - both immobile by themselves - would move when combined. They would oscillate, and radiate at fantastic speeds. They would become electromagnetic waves. This was the birth of radio. Physicist Heinrich Hertz later measured the speed of those waves to be 3.0x10^8 meters per second through a vacuum. Exactly the same as the speed of light. This proved that radio waves were a form of LIGHT invisible to our eyes, just like infrared. It also proved that light itself was an electromagnetic wave. Such waves differ from mechanical waves, because they don't have to travel through a medium. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of space. But some still believe - as scientists did in the years following the Civil War - that there's a universal, fundamental substance called the "Aether" that undergirds all of existence. And that the Aether is the medium through which electromagnetic waves travel. As best we know, the Aether does not exist. But to those who believe in it, the Aether doesn't just fill the universe. The Aether IS the universe. I think I was taken off guard by their asking me questions. Usually there guys reflexively tell me I'm wrong. Or they outright ignore my points (until one of them repeats what I said as if THEY thought of it). My hypothesis is that, wittingly or not, they see minorities as electromagnetic waves. And they see themselves as the medium through which our experiences, our perspectives, our opinions -and even our PRESENCE - propagate. Everything about us is valid only to the extent that THEY are willing to entertain it. They seem to feel that they're as foundational and as supreme as the Aether.