What is Gustav Hertz known for?
My most significant contribution, alongside James Franck, was the Franck-Hertz experiment, detailed in our 1914 papers on electron collisions in mercury vapor. We meticulously measured the energy lost by electrons when they collided with mercury atoms. The distinct steps in energy loss we observed provided crucial, direct experimental evidence for the existence of discrete, quantized energy levels within atoms, specifically supporting the Bohr model. This was not a theoretical leap but a careful observation derived from precise measurements of electron energies and the resulting light emitted by excited mercury. The experiment must decide the validity of such models.
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