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.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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He probably would have figured it out had he had time to evolve into Megahertz.
Then ascended to become pure EM spectrum as his final Gigahertz form.
With great power comes great corruption and tyranny. So begins the dark era of Terahertz
Only can Petahertz rise from the ashes of darkness and re-engineer the Universe before the incoming Heat Death
"Hello, is that DarkHorse comics?
Boy, do I have an epic 5-phase graphic novel for you!"
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This thread hurts.
The laughing? Yep!
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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.
I'm sure someone thinks it's perfect for their use case, semi relevant xkcd:
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So like Bluetooth?
But somehow more reliable.
Yes, except you need to buy each bit in a big glass jar.
Edit: only half joking, they used big Leiden Jars, which were basically giant glass batteries. There was no such thing as people with power at home, unless you were crazy rich
Fun fact: The german word for using a radio is "funken"; literally "to spark". A radioman is, or was, a "Funker". When you are talking over the radio, you are doing it "Über Funk".
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this type of science-discovery to usefulness-realization latency is the norm, pretty sure Curie didn't envision nuclear power plants
I suppose it's like asking a biologist what type of dishes would they do with a plant species they just discovered
Is that not what drives biologists, trying to eat new discoveries before someone else
most likely, other humans eat it first, they just didn't write it down and publish it
Just like how anthropological archeologists compete to eat the oldest thing they find
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.
Transistors were mostly developed for telephone systems (the ones with wires) as a replacement for tubes. And the modern tech used for radios is very different from that used for computers.
Ithink you could be more charitable in your reply. Transistors were developed to replace tubes in telephone systems... Okay but the tubes had been developed to where they were because of their usefulness in radio.
And while computers don't inherently rely on radio, it's radio communication that's taken computers from one in every office to one in everyone's pocket. Right? The main thrust of the previous commenter is true.
Even more than that, just proving Maxwell was right was a key stepping stone to all of modern physics. Maxwell, not Einstein, was the first to show that the speed of light is invariant, and Einstein's Relativity was a framework for explaining how tf physics works if that's actually true. Prior to Einstein, physists all just kind of assumed there was some flaw in Maxwell's theorems to lead to this crazy speed invariance, but as the evidence just kept piling up in favor of Maxwell, they started having to wrestle with the uncomfortable thought that this could actually be true. In this sense, Hertz can also be thought of as an important step to Einstein and beyond, and almost all of our modern technology.
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This may be an even better example than the positron. Originally a theoretical antimatter form of the common electron, with no practical application.
Turned out to be a vital tool for medical imaging. If you or someone you know has ever had a PET scan, now you know what the P stands for.
I always thought it stood for "pepperoni." So, you're saying "PET" stands for "Positrons, Endives, and Tomatoes"?
No it stands for animals you keep at home.
PET scan, its powered by hamsters.
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Did it Hertz when he realised the opposite, or did that happen after his time?
No, Hertz never lived to see applications of his discovery. Guglielmo Marconi (was a fascist) started working on radio telegraphy in 1894, shortly after Hertz' death.
Oof! One of those moments which kinda' make one wish there wasn't an afterlife...
Thank you for the tidbit, though, and fuck Fascists regardless!
One of those moments which kinda’ make one wish there wasn’t an afterlife…
Tada, your wish is reality 🙃
I'm of the "I don't know, whatever" persuasion=))
I wish Russell's Teapot wasn't real.
Look, I agree that from a purely logical standpoint, there ain't nothing there. Personally, I believe the Universe is enough as far spiritual anchors go. But from an "I'm just breathin' here" standpoint, I genuinely couldn't care less. As long as people don't hurt others out of their beliefs, they can knock themselves out believing whatever they so desire!
To be perfectly honest, I also think it adds a bit of flavour to the world as long as it's benign, I've had the immense luck of meeting a few religious people who took the good things out of The Text (generalising) and forged their own very personal relationship with the divine! They were the kind of people who took Free Will as being the highest imperative at the end of the day, people who would have fundamentally tried to respect existence even without the pre-existing framework. I'm thinking here specifically of my godfather (raised in an Orthodox household), who's a middle-management kinda' Priest (I don't know the ranks, I'm sorry...).
Having these examples in mind, I prefer all the more to live and let live, as long as they do so as well.
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I mean, why would a guy that started a car rental company know anything about radio waves?
Gotcha!
Because of car radio? Vertical integration, you know.
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And this is why science shouldn't be beheld to the whims of politicians and capitalists
There's a good NPR podcast in the same vein as this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/21/533840751/episode-779-shrimp-fight-club
It's about congressman talking about government waste and targeting the sciences. It's like, you don't get the "cool" applications without the "weird" research. I'm doing a horrible job describing it, but I thought it was a good listen.
Planet Money has some really good episodes. Unfortunately, a lot of filler as well.
~~Aperture~~ Science! We do what we must because we can!
I feel like this is a very "scientisty" thing - the theoretical aspect is so fascinating and being able to fit all the pieces into a model that is mathematically accurate is the reward.
Considering the practical application of the model and how it can benefit society (or in other words, be marketed for profit) takes a different set of skills.
I absolutely detest the equivocation of "benefits society" and "marked for profit".
Plenty of things have been discovered to have practical applications which can benefit society yet are shelved or have its implementation frustrated because it cannot be exploited for profit or threatens the profits of a preexisting application which it would replace.
You don't understand that's just Hanseatic understatement.
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?"
That's a really cool Franklin quote. Visionary.
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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.
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