Ernst Mach

Austrian physicist (1838–1916)

  • Fame63.3
  • Momentum0.0
  • Scientists rank#217
Source-basedFalling
  • Fame63.3
  • Momentum0.0
  • Scientists rank#217
  • Wikipedia14K
Lived 1838–1916, aged 78
ScientistsScientist
  • Wikipedia
    75 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1838–1916
    Aged 78
  • Awards
    1
    recognised work
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08

The physicist who saw past Newton's absolute space a generation before Einstein — and whose name you hear every time a jet breaks the sound barrier.

Biography

About

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was born on 18 February 1838 in Austria, and spent his career pulling apart assumptions older scientists took as gospel. His work on shock waves gave us the Mach number, the ratio that measures how fast something moves compared to sound. But his sharpest cut was philosophical: he tore into Newton's ideas of absolute space and time, arguing they were metaphysical baggage physics didn't need. That skepticism rippled through logical positivism and American pragmatism, and it planted seeds Einstein would harvest when he dismantled the same Newtonian framework in r…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach
said
I see the expression of... economy clearly in the gradual reduction of the statical laws of machines to a single one, viz.
Mach (1910) "Die Leitgedanken meiner naturwissenschaftlichcn Erkennenislehre und ihr Aufnahme durch die Zeitgenossen", Physikalische
Ernst Mach
said
The aim of research is the discovery of the equations which subsist between the elements of phenomena.
p. 205; On aim of research.
Ernst Mach
said
There is no problem in all mathematics that cannot be solved by direct counting.
p. 197; On mathematics and counting.
Ernst Mach
saidundated
I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much.
"On the Relative Educational Value of the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences in Colleges and High Schools", an address in (16
Ernst Mach
saidundated
Not bodies produce sensations, but element-complexes (sensation-complexes) constitute the bodies.
p. 23, as quoted in Lenin as Philosopher: A Critical Examination of the Philosophical Basis of Leninism (1948) by Anton Pannekoek, p. 33
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Fame
Falling
63.3
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical24.5
Now attention4.0
Source confidence60.0
Completeness60.0
Global rank
Country rank
Category rank
#217
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence