Preface to Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics by Hermann von Helmholtz 1

In the introduction to his interesting book, Untersuchungen uber die Ausbreitung der elektrischen Kraft Heinrich Rudolf Hertz has described how his own discoveries grew out of the seeds thus sown by his contemporaries, and has done this in such an admirably clear manner that it is impossible for anyone else to improve on it or add anything of importance. The views that Hertz subsequently proved to be correct had been propounded by Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell before him as being possible, and even highly probable; but as yet they had not been actually verified. Hertz supplied the demonstration. Among scientific men Heinrich Hertz has secured enduring fame by his researches. Hertz was able to carry on his lectures, but only with great effort, up to the 7th of December, 1893. Meanwhile in England the ideas introduced by Faraday as to the nature of electricity were spreading.