Mach

Mach

Ernst . 1838--1916, Austrian physicist and philosopher. He devised the system of speed measurement using the Mach number. He also founded logical positivism, asserting that the validity of a scientific law is proved only after empirical testing

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Mach

Speed of sound as a function of altitude.

Refers to a Mach number, or the ratio of the speed of an airplane to the speed of sound in the same atmospheric conditions. It is also used as a speed unit. The speed of sound, or Mach 1, is equal to 340.5 m/s, 661 knots, 761 miles per hour, or 1225.5 km/h at sea level under standard conditions, and it decreases with altitude. Above the tropopause (about 36,090 ft, or 11 km), Mach 1 is 295.5 m/s, 574 knots, 658 miles per hour, or 1063.2 km/h. Named after Ernst Mach (1838–1916).

An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Mach

An operating system kernel under development at Carnegie-Mellon University to support distributed and parallel computation. Mach is designed to support computing environments consisting of networks of uniprocessors and multiprocessors. Mach is the kernel of the OSF/1.

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Mach kernel

A Unix-like operating system developed at Carnegie-Mellon University in the period between 1985 and 1994. It was designed with a microkernel architecture that makes it easily portable to different platforms. Operating systems based on Mach include NextStep, OSF/1 and Mac OS X. See microkernel, Mac OS X and Open Group.

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