Famous People with Name Mach

Ernst Mach            Origin/Culture/Country: Australian

Ernst Mach: was an Austrian physicist and philosopher and is the namesake for the Mach number and the optical illusion known as Mach bands.Up to the age of 14 he was educated at home by his parents. He then joined a Gymnasium in Kremsier (now Kromeríž), where he studied for three years. In 1855 he entered the University of Vienna. There he studied physics and for one semester medical physiology, receiving his doctorate in physics in 1860 and his Habilitation the following year. His early work focused on the Doppler effect in optics and acoustics. In 1864 he took a job as Professor of Mathematics in Graz, having turned down the position of a chair in surgery at the University of Salzburg to do so, and in 1866 he was appointed as Professor of Physics. During that period Mach continued his work in psycho-physics and in sensory perception. In 1867 he took the chair of Professor of Experimental Physics at Charles-Ferdinand University, Prague, where he stayed for 28 years.