Details
HERTZ, Heinrich Rudolf (1957-1894). Untersuchungen ueber die Ausbreitung der elektrischen Kraft. Leipzig: Aug. Eupel (Sondershausen) for Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1892.
8o (227 x 149 mm). Line block text diagrams and illustrations. (Small marginal hole to 16/4.) Original green cloth, spine gilt lettered, untrimmed (joints and extremities a bit rubbed). Provenance: Author's copy, bound for presentation (printed presentation slip "berreicht vom Verfasser" bound in at front).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of Hertz's important series of papers on electromagnetic waves, originally published from 1887 through 1890, mostly in the Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaft or in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie. The papers include Hertz's report of his proof that electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed as light ("Ueber die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit der elektrodynamischen Wirkungen", first published in the Sitzungsberichte der Berl. Akad. d. Wiss., 2 February 1888). "For Hertz his determination... of the velocity...was the most exciting moment in the entire sequence of experiments" (DSB). The later papers report a series of "more qualitative experiments carried out by Hertz in 1888 on the analogy between electricity and light waves" (DSB), in which he showed that electromagnetic waves are longer than light, but like light can be refracted, reflected and polarized. "This discovery and its demonstration led directly to radio communication, television and radar" (Dibner 71). Although trained as an engineer, Hertz conducted his experiments for purely theoretical objectives, and did not pursue their practical applications, a rich field of research that was soon taken up by Marconi and others, initiating "a technologicial development as momentous as its physical counterpart" (DSB). PMM 377; Waller 11374; Norman 1061.
8o (227 x 149 mm). Line block text diagrams and illustrations. (Small marginal hole to 16/4.) Original green cloth, spine gilt lettered, untrimmed (joints and extremities a bit rubbed). Provenance: Author's copy, bound for presentation (printed presentation slip "berreicht vom Verfasser" bound in at front).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of Hertz's important series of papers on electromagnetic waves, originally published from 1887 through 1890, mostly in the Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaft or in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie. The papers include Hertz's report of his proof that electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed as light ("Ueber die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit der elektrodynamischen Wirkungen", first published in the Sitzungsberichte der Berl. Akad. d. Wiss., 2 February 1888). "For Hertz his determination... of the velocity...was the most exciting moment in the entire sequence of experiments" (DSB). The later papers report a series of "more qualitative experiments carried out by Hertz in 1888 on the analogy between electricity and light waves" (DSB), in which he showed that electromagnetic waves are longer than light, but like light can be refracted, reflected and polarized. "This discovery and its demonstration led directly to radio communication, television and radar" (Dibner 71). Although trained as an engineer, Hertz conducted his experiments for purely theoretical objectives, and did not pursue their practical applications, a rich field of research that was soon taken up by Marconi and others, initiating "a technologicial development as momentous as its physical counterpart" (DSB). PMM 377; Waller 11374; Norman 1061.