Ernst Mach 1838-1916

By dorothy.wheeler

  • Early life 1838-1860

    Early life 1838-1860
    Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was born on 18 February 1838 in Chirlitz, Czech Republic (Famous Scientists, 2019). He received a doctorate in physics in 1860 but expanded his discipline beyond physics to include psychology, physiology, psychophysics, and experimental physics (Famous Scientist, 2019).

  • 18665-1866 Discovered Mach’s Bands

    From 1865-1866 Ernst Mach discovered and began to publish a series of articles on Mach’s Bands (Pojman, 2019). This optical illusion is the ability for the human eye to see dark bands and light bands near the change of sharp contrasting light (Gregersen, 2019).

  • 1887 Credited with the Mach Principle and Mach Number

    In 1887 Ernst Mach was credited with the Mach Principle which is explained in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlJpIMD0vvQ. The principle was never published but noted by Philipp Frank (Famousscientists, 2019). He was also credited with the Mach number, “ratio of the velocity of a fluid to the velocity of sound in that fluid” (Gregersen, 2019).

  • Published Analysis of Sensations

    In 1893 Ernst Mach published The Science of Mechanics and in 1897, Analysis of Sensations. These works were a major contribution to physics, psychology, and physiology while contributing to the Gestalt Theory (Famousscientists, 2019).

  • Death and Summary 19 February 1916

    Ernst Mach died on 19 February 2019 (Famousscientists, 2019). He published five major works, over 100 scientific papers, inspired Albert Einstein, contributed to the Doppler Effect, and inspired the Gestalt Theory (Famousscientists, 2019).

  • Works Cited

    Gregersen, Erik. “Explore Encyclopedia Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2019, https://www.britannica.com/. Pojman, Paul, "Ernst Mach", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/ernst-mach/. “Home.” Famous Scientists, 2019, https://www.famousscientists.org/. YouTube, YouTube, 7 Dec. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlJpIMD0vvQ.