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Ernst Mach, Physicist and Philosopher
An Austrian born Physicist and Philosopher of Science. His work foreshadowed Albert Einstein and was a major influence on positivism, behaviorism, empiricism, conventionalism and pragmatism. BLACKMORE, JOHN THOMAS. ERNST MACH - HIS LIFE, WORK, AND INFLUENCE. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1970. -
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The Life of Ernst Mach
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The Science of Mechanics
Ernst Mach's most notable work was produced in 1883, The Science of Mechanics. His work served as an enormous influence on scientific understanding for generations that followed and inspired historians, philosophers, and physicists. His work focused on the fundamentals of mechanics, introducing scientific reasoning as a construct with as few and simple postulates as possible. MACH, ERNST. THE SCIENCE OF MECHANICS. 1893. -
Shock and Sound Wave Propagation Work
As a Professor at the University of Prague in 1887, Mach made his most significant contribution to Physics when he documented a bullet moving faster than the speed of sound and the cone like shape of the wave. He and his son, Ludwig, photographed the invisible shock waves and documented the photo evidence in a shadowgraph image. The image successfully displayed a bullet and the associated supersonic shock wave. The Mach number today refers to the ratio of speed of an object and speed of sound. -
Philosophy of Phenominalism
Mach developed an anti-realist stance on the theories of the unseen labelling phenominalism and only sensations as real. His position was at odds with prevailing community understanding and evidence, causing many to criticize his view at the time. Einstein's experiments and the atomic theory later disproved Mach's beliefs and concluded his reasoning was not sound. "Ernst Mach's Vienna, 1895-1930, or, Phenomenalism as Philosophy of Science." Scitech Book News, vol 26, no 2, Ringgold Inc, 2002. -
Mach's Principle
https://youtu.be/8ICuf5r6Dno Work performed in roughly 1912 was noted as the inspiration leading Einstein to the theory of General Relativity published in 1915. Mach's Principle was founded on the premise that all masses in the universe are connected. The phenomenon of inertia and acceleration of an object is influenced by all related matter in the universe. "Mach's Principle: Symmetry of Angular Momentum" YouTube, Dec 30, 2017