It's why Michael Faraday will always be my fave; a blue collar genius. He designed, created, and built the equipment that eggheads used to test their hypothesis and mathematical equations.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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TIL: I'm just like Hertz
Nothing, I guess
Aw, cheer up; someone will apply you in thirty to forty years.
Imagine if he had to apply for funding
"these waves have the potential to transform how we communicate and will likely find world wide usage"
He would actually be right unlike all the other funding applications which are largely oversold.
I mean it's kind of bizarre that he couldn't think of a practical application. We literally use invisible waves to communicate already, these ones move at light speed, how could that not be useful?
Hilariously, light is an electromagnetic wave.
So, yes, we can see electromagnetic waves.... Just, only a very small segment of them.
How wrong he was. Now we use EM daily for everything.... Communicating via Wi-Fi, listening to music in the car (FM broadcast), or via Bluetooth and using LTE... Even heating our food. Not to mention medical applications like X-rays...
There's a shitload of stuff we use EM for without even thinking. It's all around us, all the time, like the matrix. I love EM science.
This goes to show you that, just because someone discovered a thing, doesn't mean that they have any idea what to do with that discovery, or that the discoveries end there....
Before, reality was just what humans could touch, smell, see, and hear, but after the publication of the charged electromagnetic spectrum, we now know that what we can touch, smell, see, and hear, is less than one-millionth.
I still like the fact that the guy that invented super glue was very annoyed by how sticky it was.
And Mantis Shrimp still continue to baffle me in the amount of EM range they can sense/see.
If only he knew his discovery would lead to the worst car rental company he problem wouldn't have published
We stand on the shoulders of giants etc etc. But it seems odd to me that they wouldn't think about using this for communication at least.
It's not always immediately obvious to what end you can use a new innovation. For instance, the Romans discovered and built a steam engine. But nobody connected the dots that it could be used to power a train.
To me, it showcases the main reason why we need to collaborate. Only together, we can exponentially increase the potential of everything we build.
Herons steam "engine" had no power whatsoever and was not scalable. And even if it would have been scalable, they had had no fuel to drive it.
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Imagine industrial revolution Roman Empire, thank fuck they didn't connect the dots.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio
By August 1895, Marconi was field testing his system but even with improvements he was only able to transmit signals up to one-half mile, a distance Oliver Lodge had predicted in 1894 as the maximum transmission distance for radio waves.
I suppose beyond the engineering know how required they were looking at possible transmission ranges and thinking it simply wasn't practical, square law and all that.
This.
There are often actual limits to what can be done, and there are practical limits. Especially in the early days of a technology it's really hard to understand which limits are actual limits, practical limits or only short-term limits.
For example, in the 1800s, people thought that going faster than 30km/h would pose permanent health risks and wouldn't be practical at all. We now know that 30km/h isn't fast at all, but we do know that 1300km/h is pretty much the hard speed limit for land travel and that 200-300km/h is the practical limit for land travel (above that it becomes so power-inefficient and so dangerous that there's hardly a point).
So when looking at the technology in an early state, it's really hard to know what kind of limit you have hit.
Faraday, after demonstrating how moving a magnet through a coiled wire induced a current in the wire was asked by a visiting statesman what was the use of this.
Faraday responded, "In twenty years, you will be taxing it"
Similarly, at a demonstration of hot air balloons in France, Benjamin Franklin was asked "Of what use is this?"
Franklin replied, "Of what use is a newborn baby?"
"Mr. Franklin, of what use is this hot air balloon contraption?"
"You can take ladies up in it with a bottle of wine and a blanket and you know, they can’t refuse, because of the implication. Think about it. She's floating up in the middle of the sky with some dude she barely knows. You know, she looks around, and what does she see? Nothing but open air. 'Ahhhh! There’s nowhere for me to run. What am I gonna do, say ‘no?’"
Sounds like Faraday understood the... potential.
Funnily enough, Faraday seemingly also understood that the Electric Field only possesses a potential in the absence of changing magnetic fields. Because only in the absence of changing magnetic fields, the rotation of the Electric Field is zero, and only then it has a potential.
Everything I've ever heard about Franklin makes him a boss. This is a new one.
Here's a little known fact that is not true, which will bring some nuance to the previous anecdote, Benjamin Franklin ate babies.
Another one that is true but sounds like an onion.
He enjoyed the company of GILFS
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That's a really cool Franklin quote. Visionary.
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The germans are really something else, what innovation hasn't sprung from their imagination?
He probably would have figured it out had he had time to evolve into Megahertz.
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If you think about it, almost all computer-technology is radio. Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, radar, and cellular are literally radio. Meanwhile everything else runs on transistor tech developed and refined... for radios.
Our modern economy couldn't exist if people like Hertz and Maxwell didn't get to toy with their useless hobbies. But we can't rely on the curiosity of the leisure class anymore. Basic research is expensive, necessary, and a public good. I'm afraid that the Trump regime has already spoiled the secret sauce that makes America the technology leader of the world.
Two inventions:
- Internet
- Computers
are independent of each other, but go together nicely.
You could have an internet (sort of) without computers. Consider Teletypers, FM Radio broadcasts, or Telephone.
an internet (sort of) without computers.
Really? You mean like the ... telephone network?
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I mean, it would be some 25 years until the radio was invented. And Hertz' machine required a 30kV spark on a 2.5m meter long antenna with 2 solid 30cm zinc spheres, and his transmission range was something like "barely down the hall".
Not the most practical method.
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This post tickles a fond memory of mine. I was talking to a right-wing libertarian, and he said there should be no research done ever if it couldn't prove beforehand its practical applications. I laughed out loud because I knew how ignorant and ridiculous that statement was. He clearly had never picked up a book on the history of science, on the history of these things:
- quantum mechanics. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn't have semiconductors in his phone, or if he didn't have access to lasers for his LASIK surgery (which he actually did have), both of which are technologies built by basic research that didn't have practical applications in mind.
- electromagnetism. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian was having his LASIK surgery and the power went out without there being a generator, a technology built by basic research that didn't have practical applications in mind.
- X-rays. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn't have x-rays to check the inside of his body in case something went wrong, a technology built by basic research that didn't have practical applications in mind.
- superconductivity. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn't have superconductors for an MRI to check the inside of his body in case something went wrong, a technology built by basic research that didn't have practical applications in mind.
- radio waves. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn't have radio waves for his phone and computer's wifi and bluetooth to run his digital business, technologies built by basic research that didn't have practical applications in mind.
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