He received his Ph.D. magna cum laude from the University of Berlin in 1880, where he studied under Hermann von Helmholtz. In 1883 he began his studies of the electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell. Between 1885 and 1889, while he was professor of physics at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic, he produced electromagnetic waves (electromagnetic radiation) in the laboratory and measured their length and velocity. He showed that the nature of their vibration and their susceptibility to reflection and refraction were the same as those of light and heat waves. As a result he established beyond any doubt that light and heat are electromagnetic radiations. In 1889 Hertz was appointed professor of physics at the University of Bonn, where he continued his research on the discharge of electricity in rarefied gases.

His scientific papers were translated into English and published in three volumes: Electric Waves (1893), Miscellaneous Papers (1896), and Principles of Mechanics (1899).