If you visit Google’s home page today, you’ll notice that their typical logo has been replaced with an animation of an undulating, multi-colored wave.

If you click on the wave, you’ll be taken to sites telling the story of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.

We should all take a moment today to thank Hertz for his contribution to the radio spectrum. Indeed, it was Hertz who showed that electricity could be transmitted via electromagnetic waves. This laid the groundwork for developing wireless telegraph and radio. In the 1930’s the International Electrotechnical Commission decided that Hertz’s name would become the unit of frequency for our electromagnetic spectrum–the hertz (Hz)–about four decades after the his death.

To read the story of Hertz, I would suggest browsing his Wikipedia entry.

If you missed seeing the Google Doodle animation, check out the video below:

This isn’t the first time Google has honored an influential innovator in our radio world, a few years ago we posted their Google Doodle tribute to Samuel Morse.