18 Facts About Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach was born in Chrlice, Moravia, Austrian Empire.

Ernst Mach later became a socialist and an atheist, but his theory and life was sometimes compared to Buddhism.

Up to the age of 14, Ernst Mach was educated at home by his parents.

Ernst Mach then entered a gymnasium in Kromeriz, where he studied for three years.

In 1864, Ernst Mach became professor of mathematics at the University of Graz after having declined a chair in surgery at the University of Salzburg.

Ernst Mach described how when a bullet or shell moved faster than the speed of sound, it created a compression of air in front of it.

One of the best-known of Ernst Mach's ideas is the so-called Ernst Mach principle, the physical origin of inertia.

Ernst Mach was well known for his philosophy, developed in close interplay with his science.

Ernst Mach defended a type of phenomenalism, recognizing only sensations as real.

In 1898, Ernst Mach survived a paralytic stroke, and in 1901, he retired from the University of Vienna and was appointed to the upper chamber of the Austrian Parliament.

In 1901, Ernst Mach accepted an appointment to the Austrian House of Lords but declined a nobility because he thought it inappropriate for a scientist to accept such a thing.

Ernst Mach was on good personal terms with the Social Democrat politician Viktor Adler and left money in his will to the Social Democrat newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung.

Ernst Mach contributed to cosmology the hypothesis known as Ernst Mach's principle.

From 1895 to 1901, Ernst Mach held a newly created chair for "the history and philosophy of the inductive sciences" at the University of Vienna.

Ernst Mach originally saw scientific laws as summaries of experimental events, constructed for the purpose of making complex data comprehensible, but later emphasized mathematical functions as a more useful way to describe sensory appearances.

Ernst Mach's positivism influenced many Russian Marxists, such as Alexander Bogdanov.

Ernst Mach had a direct influence on the Vienna Circle philosophers and logical positivism in general.

Ernst Mach's work has been cited as an influence on the Vienna Circle, being described as a "major precursor of logical positivism".