Ernst Mach

From Philosopedia

Mach, Ernst von (1838–1916)

Born at Turas, Austria, Mach studied at Vienna University and became professor of mathematic at Graz in 1864, and of physics at Prague (1867) and Vienna (1895).

Mach was Rector of Prague University (1879–1880) and professor at Vienna University (1895–1901). He was ennobled and admitted to the Austrian House of Peers on his retirement in the latter year.

Mach studied the relation of physics to psychology, and the development of his views brought him to an advanced rationalist position. He maintained that there was no essential difference between the physical and the psychic - that both consisted of elements - thus cutting the root of the Christian doctrines. All knowledge comes from the senses, he taught, and he was relentless in campaigning against anything metaphysical in science.

Mach's experimental work has proved of importance in aeronautical design and the science of projectiles. His name has been given to a unit of velocity (the Mach number - the ratio of speed of object to the speed of sound in the medium in which the object is moving), and to the angle of a shock wave to the direction of motion (the Mach angle). He wrote The Analysis of Sensations (1886) and The Science of Mechanics (1893), works that influenced Albert Einstein and laid the foundations of logical positivism.

{RAT}