Mach, Ernst (redirected from Ernst Mach)

Mach, Ernst (ĕrnst mäkh), 1838–1916, Austrian physicist and philosopher, b. Moravia. He taught (1864–67) mathematics at Graz and later, until his retirement in 1901, was professor of physics at Prague and Vienna. Mach, one of the leaders of modern positivism, did his major work in the philosophy of science. Following strictly empirical principles, he strove to rid science of all metaphysical and religious assumptions. He felt science should confine itself to the description of phenomena that could be perceived by the senses. This view challenged science's traditional claim of yielding absolute knowledge and was greatly influential in the development of logical positivism. Mach also did research in the field of ballistics; the Mach number is named for him. His works include Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung (1883; tr. The Science of Mechanics, 1893); Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886); Erkenntnis und Irrtum [perception and error] (1905).

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Mach, Ernst

(born Feb. 18, 1838, Chirlitz-Turas, Moravia—died Feb. 19, 1916, Haar, Ger.) Austrian physicist and philosopher. After earning a doctorate in physics in 1860, he taught at the Universities of Vienna and Graz as well as Charles University in Prague. Interested in the psychology and physiology of sensation, in the 1860s he discovered the physiological phenomenon known as Mach's bands, the tendency of the human eye to see bright or dark bands near the boundaries between areas of sharply differing illumination. He later studied movement and acceleration and developed optical and photographic techniques for measuring sound waves and wave propagation. In 1887 he established the principles of supersonics and the Mach number, the ratio of the velocity of an object to the velocity of sound. He also proposed the theory of inertia known as Mach's principle. In Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (1886), he asserted that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience or observation.