Ernst Mach

In 1867, Ernst Mach married Ludovica Marussig in Graz. They later on had five children - four sons and one daughter.

His son Ludwig Mach was one of his closest collaborators, assisting him in experiments he conducted during his tenure in Prague. Mach and Ludwig were able to photograph the shadows of the invisible shock waves.

After suffering from a paralysing stroke, the physicist moved near Munich, to Vaterstetten, to be close to his son Ludwig. Mach died on February 19th of 1916 due to heart disease and was buried at the cemetery of Haar.

Ernst Mach was born to Johann Mach and Josephine Lanhaus, as the oldest among their three children. He was born on February 18, 1838, in Chirlitz-Turas, Moravia (now Brno, Czech Republic).

His family moved to a farmhouse close to Vienna when he was two, where he continued receiving his education till the time he was fourteen. His father’s excellent education and mother’s artistic nature shaped his knowledge with both philosophical and scientific inclinations.

After his education at home, he entered school at a Gymnasium in Kroměříž where he studied for the next three years. In 1855, he enrolled as a student in the ‘University of Vienna’ and studied physics and also medical physiology for a year.

In 1860, he presented his thesis on electrical charge and induction, which earned him a doctorate in physics. He also received his Habilitation the following year.

From 1860-1862, Mach worked for his mentor Andreas von Ettinghausen, as a Privatdozent in the latter’s laboratory. There, he spent years conducting experiments on optics and acoustics and also embarked on a detailed study of the Doppler Effect.

He continued teaching at the ‘University of Vienna’ and the lion’s share of his earnings came from giving sought-after lectures on psychophysics, optics and musical acoustics.

In 1864, he took an appointment as the professor of mathematics at ‘Graz University’. After two years, he was also appointed as a professor of physics.

He left Graz in 1867, and became a professor for experimental physics at ‘Karls-Universität’ (Charles University) in Prague, where he lived for almost the next three decades. In Prague, he conducted research on retinal stimuli, auditory perception, wave motion and also studied the propagation of sound waves with the use of photographic devices, which gave the terms ‘Mach Number’ and ‘Mach Angle’.

He deduced and experimentally confirmed the existence of shock waves which appear in the form of a cone with the projectile at the tip.

One of the best known ideas put forward by the revolutionary physicist, is known as ‘Mach’s Principle’ which dealt with the physical origins of inertia, but he never wrote it down. It was conveyed in a verbal graphic form, which was credited to Mach by Philipp Frank.

His most important work is said to be the ‘The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development’, which has shaped the minds of several upcoming scientists over the course of time. Albert Einstein mentioned Mach’s influence on him to be the reason he changed his outlook towards physics.