"The presentations and conceptions of the average man of the world are formed and dominated, not by the full and pure desire for knowledge as an end in itself, but by the struggle to adapt himself favourably to the conditions of life."
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( MAHKH, German: [ɛʁnst ˈmax]; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Czech physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honour. As a philosopher of science, he was a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. Through his criticism of Isaac Newton's theories of space and time, he foreshadowed Albert Einstein's theory of...
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( MAHKH, German: [ɛʁnst ˈmax]; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Czech physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honour. As a philosopher of science, he was a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. Through his criticism of Isaac Newton's theories of space and time, he foreshadowed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.