Carl Hellmuth Hertz (also written Carl Helmut Hertz, October 15, 1920 – April 29, 1990) was a German physicist known primarily for being involved in the development of

inkjet technology Inkjet technology originally was invented for depositing aqueous inks on paper in 'selective' positions based on the ink properties only. Inkjet nozzles and inks were designed together and the inkjet performance was based on a design. It was used a ...

and ultrasound technology. He was the son of Gustav Ludwig Hertz and great nephew of

Heinrich Hertz Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The uni ...

Biography

Hellmuth Hertz was born October 15, 1920 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, Germany. His father was

Gustav Hertz Gustav Ludwig Hertz (; 22 July 1887 – 30 October 1975) was a German experimental physicist and Nobel Prize winner for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gases, and a nephew of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Biography Hertz was born in Hamb ...

who, along with

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate i ...

, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1925 for their experiments on inelastic electron collisions in gases. Gustav Hertz's uncle was in turn

, who first conclusively proved the existence of the

electromagnetic waves In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) ...

. Hellmuth graduated from the elite

Schule Schloss Salem Schule Schloss Salem (Anglicisation: ''School of Salem Castle'', ''Salem Castle School'') is a boarding school with campuses in Salem and Überlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany. It offers the German Abitur, as well as the Inter ...

boarding school in 1939 at the age of 19 years with the highest grade in mathematics and physics. The same year, he was conscripted into the

German Army (Wehrmacht) The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the German Navy, '' ...

and served as a soldier for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1943 he was captured in the North African theatre by US troops and brought to America, where he was placed in a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...

until 1946. Because his father did some research in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

at that time, he couldn't get a job in the US. Instead, he got a job at the

Department of Physics Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make o ...

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

, who were both friends of Gustav Hertz. From 1961 he was a teacher at Lund University, and from 1963 he was Professor of Electrical Measurement Technology in Lund. He was involved in the development of both the inkjet and the ultrasound technology. He produced the first echocardiographs together with the Swedish physician

Inge Edler Inge Gudmar Edler (17 March 1911 – 6 March 2001) was a Swedish cardiologist, who in collaboration with Carl Hellmuth Hertz developed medical ultrasonography and echocardiography An echocardiography, echocardiogram, cardiac echo or simply a ...

. He was married to Birgit Nordbring and was the father of Thomas and Hans Hertz, and he died April 29, 1990.

References

1920 births 1990 deaths People connected to Lund University Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award 20th-century Swedish physicists Heinrich Hertz Alumni of Schule Schloss Salem German emigrants to Sweden German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences {{Germany-med-bio-stub