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Ernst Mach

tion, cxccpt for his horse which hc put in a ncighboring rooin on thc same floor. Hc likcd to ridc his magnificcnt Arabian stallion through the strects and parks of Vicnna up to the vcry door of thc univcrsity Iccturc hall.* Hc was known as a superior boxcr and as thc best fencer in thc city. Hc was also considcrcd indolem and rather unapproachable, indced, far too much so for Mach, who was espccially dissatisfied with thc State of his own mathcmatical understanding. Mach was not taught and was ncvcr to learn many aspeets of advancc<T 'mhrhcmatics. Ile latcr wrotc, for cxamplc: “Set theory has long bccn bcyond mc. The rcason goes back to thc weakness of my youthful training in mnthe-matics, which, unfortunatcly, I havc ncvcr found thc opportunity to correct.” ³

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Mach reccived his doctoratc in 1860 and bccamc a privatdozcnt or un* salaricd Iccturcr thc following year. Hc wanted abovc all to study under Franz Ncumann (179&-1895) at Kdnigsberg, thc physicist who had hclpcd to establish thc mathcmatical laws of thc induction of elcc-tric currcnts and who had donc rcsearch on a dynamie theory of light. Hut Mach simply lackcd thc financial mcans, nor could hc evcn afford to buy the cquipmcnt nccessary to carry out satisfactory physical cxpcri* ments in Vicnna. Thus financial pressure drovc him in two directions: first, to introduce popular, remuncrative Iccturcs, and sccond, to find a way to carry out inexpen$ivc laboratory cxpcrimcnts.

Hc attempted to solvc thc first problem by lecturing to thc large numbers of medical students in Vicnna. For cxamplc, in thc fali of 1861, besides ofTering a coursc in “Methods of Physical Invcstigation,” hc taught “Physics for Medical Students” and “Higher Physiological Physics.” He was respectcd as a good tcacher, and im 1863^0 published i some of his Icctures under the titlc Compendium of Physics for Medical Students.* The book, howcvcr, was not a commcrcial success and soon bccame a rarity.

In thc summer of j86rMach gavc Icctures on “Mcchanical Principles and Mcchanistic Physics in Its Historical Dcvclopmcnt,” a titlc that anticipated his latcr book on thc history of mcchanics (1883).

Mach deve!oped an inereasing interest in physics as applied to physi-iology and psychology. The rcasons for this were sevcralfold: first,

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Mach’* attraction to Gusray Fcchncr’$ rcccni book The Element* of . Psychophysics (1860); seconcl, thc work of thc lcading physicists Her- \ mann von Hclmhokz and Emil du Bois-Rcymond, in physiology and psychology; and third, thc presenCe of outstanding physiologists in Vicnna at that dmc. Mach was cspccially impressed with thc Icctures of Professor Ernst Wilhelm von Briickc (1819-1892), thc brain physi-ologist and a elose associatc of I Iclmholtz.

Machs interest in thc ncw field of psychophysics soon rcsultcd in a scrics of public Icctures on thc subjcct which hc gavc in tHć wTńtcr semester of 1862/1863 and in thc summer of 1863. His presentation was a popular succcss, hut in spite of this hc soon becamc quitc dissatisfied with his tcaching. “Impired by Fcchncr’s book, I dclivcrcd somc vcry bad Icctures on thc subject [on how thc qualitative varicty of sensations can arisc front thc variation of thc conncctions and front mcrc quanti-tativc difTercnccs], thc valuc of nty Icctures bcing still further dimin-ished by thc fact that I soon came to sce that Fcchner’s theory of formulae of mcasurcmcnt was erroneous." ⁵ He published thc leetures in the form of separate articles scattercd through the same issue of a scicntific journnl in 1863® But again, no stonc cvcr sank with less noise or trące of a ripple; no rcvievv, no criticism, nolhing.

The winter of 1863/1864, his last semester as a privatdozent, saw a series of Mach leetures on I Ielmholtz’s latcst acoustical discovcries. The leetures were titlcd “Acoustics as thc Physical Foundation of Musie Theory." ⁷ But oncc again, Mach’s published leetures. IntroJuc-tion to TTclmholtzs Theory of Musie (1866), met with no protessional recognition. The book simply fcll on deaf cars.

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Mach did not solve his second major problem, finding satisfactory inexpcn$ive laboratory equipmcnt, but by shifting at least part of his experimcntal interest to physiology he was able to make somc progress. cven with thc most primitive instrumenis and apparatus or with nonc at all. Somc of Mach’s expcrimental work was quickh successfu! and gained a mcasurc of recognition; some of it was too far ahead of its time, and the remainder was of minor or transient importance or was unsuccessful. In brief, Mach was concerned with the foliowing ajv proachcs and subjcct areas:

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