  Mach was born in Moravia on Feb 18, 1838. In 1840 his family moved to a farm in Untersiebenbrunn, Lower Austria. He studied physics at the University of Vienna from 1855 to 1861, continuing on as a lecturer until 1864. After spending three years as Professor of Mathematics at Graz, he received a Chair at Prague where he stayed until 1895. For the next six years, Mach occupied a Chair in the History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences at Vienna. He suffered a stroke in 1898 and retired in 1901. He died near Munich in 1916.