I still don't really understand Hertz's experiment.
Can someone please outline Hertz's experiment in simpler terms and in clear steps, because everywhere I look in textbooks and websites I still don't really understand this concept.
Hertz had a few different experiments but in some ways, similar.
One was about the speed of light and the other was about the photoelectric effect (which he didn't investigate further after observation).
In the first one, he used produced interference patterns and standing waves to determine wavelength of light from a special device (transmitter - sparks at the spark balls). The AC voltage supplied to the device had a frequency equal to the frequency of light produced by its sparks.
Using the formula c=f(lambda), he could determine the speed of light, c.
With the same device as well as a loop with a small gap, he observed that when the device sparked, the detector loop also had a spark which was smaller as distance was increased and no sparking occurred when the gap was parallel to the light waves from the sparks. He believed that the sparks somehow increased the conductivity of air which resulted in the sparks but never realised that electrons were actually liberated from the surface of the detector.
