The creation of scientific effects Heinrich Hertz and electric waves / [electronic resource] :
Jed Z. Buchwald.
- University of Chicago Press, c1994.
- 1 online resource (xiv, 482 p.) : ill.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 465-478) and index.
1. Introduction: Heinrich Hertz, Maker of Effects -- pt. 1. In Helmholtz's Laboratory. 2. Forms of Electrodynamics. 3. Realizing Potentials in the Laboratory -- pt. 2. Information Direct from Nature. 4. A Budding Career. 5. Devices for Induction. 6. Hertz's Early Exploration of Helmholtz's Concepts -- pt. 3. Berlin's Golden Boy. 7. Rotating Spheres. 8. Elastic Interactions. 9. Specific Powers in the Laboratory. 10. The Cathode Ray as a Vehicle for Success -- pt. 4. Studying Books. 11. Frustration. 12. Hertz's Argument. 13. Assumption X -- pt. 5. Electric Waves. 14. A Novel Device. 15. How the Resonator Became an Electric Probe. 16. Electric Propagation Produced. 17. Electric Waves Manipulated. 18. Conclusion: Restraint and Reconstruction -- App. 1. Waveguides and Radiators in Maxwellian Electrodynamics -- App. 2. Helmholtz's Derivation of the Forces from a Potential -- App. 3. Helmholtz's Energy Argument -- App. 4. Polarization Currents and Experiment. App. 5. Convection in Helmholtz's Electrodynamics -- App. 6. Instability in the Fechner-Weber Theory -- App. 7. Hertz's First Use of the General Helmholtz Equations -- App. 8. Hertz on the Induction of Polarization by Motion -- App. 9. Hertz on Relatively Moving, Charged Conductors -- App. 10. Elastic Bodies Pressed Together -- App. 11. Evaporation's Theoretical Limits -- App. 12. Hertz's Model for Geissler-Tube Discharge -- App. 13. Propagation in Helmholtz's Electrodynamics -- App. 14. Forces in Hertz's Early Experiments -- App. 15. Hertz's Quasi Field Theory for Narrow Cylindrical Wires -- App. 16. Considerations regarding the Possible Background to Helmholtz's New Physics -- App. 17. Poincare and Bertrand -- App. 18. Difficulties with Charge and Polarization.
This book is an attempt to reconstitute the tacit knowledge--the shared, unwritten assumptions, values, and understandings--that shapes the work of science. Jed Z. Buchwald uses as his focus the social and intellectual world of nineteenth-century German physics. Drawing on the lab notes, published papers, and unpublished manuscripts of Heinrich Hertz, Buchwald recreates Hertz's 1887 invention of a device that produced electromagnetic waves in wires. The invention itself was serendipitous and the device was quickly transformed, but Hertz's early experiments led to major innovations in electrodyna.