ABSTRACT
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born in Hamburg on 22 February 1857. His ancestors were Jewish, but his father Heinrich David Hertz had been “assimilated” in 1834, i.e., converted to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Hertz attended classes in physics, descriptive geometry, drafting and comparative psychology, but found them all boring and elementary. Heinrich Hertz arrived in Berlin to begin his university studies in physics near the end of October 1878. Hertz’s doctoral dissertation concerned the currents induced when metal spheres rotate in a magnetic field. Hertz’s spirits remained at low ebb during his first months in Karlsruhe. Hertz also found that he could increase the propagation distance of the electromagnetic waves by increasing the frequency of the radiation emitted through a reduction of the inductance and capacitance of the transmitting coil. Hertz’s letters to Helmholtz are very deferential, as might be expected of a former student writing to his mentor.
