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frequent excursions which I have made into this province have
all sprung from the profound conviction that the foundations of
science as a whole, and of physics in particular, await their
next greatest elucidations from the side of biology, and
especially, from the analysis of the sensations. [Mach in
Analysis of Sensations: Preface to 1st Ed.] Ernst Mach (February
18, 1838 – February 19, 1916) made major contributions to
physics, philosophy, and physiological psychology. In physics,
the speed of sound bears his name, as he was the first to
systematically study super-sonic motion. He also made important
contributions to understanding the Doppler effect. His critique
of Newtonian ideas of absolute space and time were an
inspiration to the young Einstein, who credited Mach as being
the philosophical forerunner of relativity theory. His
systematic skepticism of the old physics was similarly important
to a generation of young German physicists. In philos