Today we are all about the history of radio and the latest technology. Our story begins in Britain in 1873. A scientist named James Maxwell wrote a mathematical theory about a kind of energy. He called this energy electromagnetic waves.
His theory said this kind of energy could pass unseen through the air. James Maxwell was not able to probe his idea. Other scientists could not prove it either until German Scientists Heinrich Hertz tried an experiment around 1887.
Henrich Hertz sounds very simple. He used two pieces of metal placed close together. He used electricity to make a spark jump between the two pieces of metal. He also built a simple receiver made of wire that was turned many times in a circle to looped. At the end of the loop were small pieces of metal separated by a tiny amount of space. The receiver was placed several meters from the other device.
Henrich Hertz proved that James Maxwell idea was correct Electromagnetic waves or energy passed through the air from on device to the other. Later Henrich Hertz demonstrated the experiment to his students in a classroom. One of the students asked what use might be made of this discovery. But Henrich Hertz thought his discovery was of no use. He said it was interesting but had no value.
Henrich Hertz was wrong. His experiment was the very beginning of the electronic communication we use today. In recognition of his work, the unit of frequency of the radio wave, one cycle per second, is named the hertz.
Radio waves become known to scientists as Hertzian waves.
