Google Doodle Celebrating Heinrich Rudolf Hertz’s 155th Birthday
By Silviu Serban- February 22, 2012
- Offbeat
Google is once again celebrating a very important person who has had a huge impact on the photoelectric effect and electromagnetism radiation. The search giant is always looking to pay a tribute to the people who were brilliant in their domain, and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz is one of them who will remain in history forever.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born on February 22nd, 1857 in Hamburg, Germany. The physicist is the one who clarified the electromagnetic theory of light which was developed earlier by Maxwell.
The German physicist is the first man in the world to prove that electromagnetic waves do exist using engineering tools that transmitted and received radio pulses. Today’s Google Doodle celebrating Heinrich Rudolf Hertz’s 155th birthday is in the form of electromagnetic waves.
Hertz is known for not realizing the full potential of the electromagnetic waves. He said that his discovery doesn’t have any implications right now or any practical use whatsoever. The German physicist said that his experiment was meant to prove that “Maxwell was right” and that the “mysterious electromagnetic waves” will be better understood in the future.
In 1892, Hertz also demonstrated that the so-called cathode rays can penetrate through thin metal foils.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was married to Elizabeth Hertz and he had two daughters: Joanna and Mathilde. The physicist died in 1894 at the age of 36 following an infection. After complaining of migraines, he was diagnosed with Wegener’s granulomatosis, and several operations weren’t enough to cure him.
He was buried at a Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf, Hamburg, while his family moved to England in the early 1930s after Adolf Hitler rose to power. According to Mathilde Hertz, one of Heinrich’s daughters, her sister and she never got married or had any children therefore the great physicists doesn’t have any descendants.
Well, the Google doodle looks pretty amazing, and we’re very happy that the search giant remembered to celebrate Heinrich Rudolf Hertz’s 155th birthday.
