Carl Hellmuth Hertz (also written Carl Helmut Hertz, 15 October 1920 – 29 April 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 as ...

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. Biography Heinri ...

Biography

Hellmuth Hertz was born on 15 October 1920 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany. His father was Gustav Hertz who, along with

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

, 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) is a self-propagating wave of the electromagnetic field that carries momentum and radiant energy through space. It encompasses a broad spectrum, classified by frequency or its inverse, wavelength, ran ...

. Hellmuth graduated from the elite Schule Schloss Salem 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 together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

and served as a soldier for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. 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 as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

until 1946. Because his father did some research in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

at that time, he could not get a job in the US. Instead, he got a job at the Department of Physics in

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

in Sweden with the assistance of James Franck and the

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) 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 outstanding contributions in th ...

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...

, 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 Echocardiography, also known as cardiac ultrasound, is the u ...

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

References

1920 births 1990 deaths History of medical ultrasonography 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