Page 53 - 48Fundamentals of Compressible Fluid Mechanics

1.3. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 15

professor of mathematics at the University of Padua in 1592. During the time af-
ter his study, he made numerous discoveries such as that of the pendulum clock,
(1602). Galileo also proved that objects fell with the same velocity regardless of
their size.
Galileo had a relationship with Marina Gamba (they never married) who
lived and worked in his house in Padua, where she bore him three children. How-
ever, this relationship did not last and Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi and
Galileo’s son, Vincenzio, joined him in Florence (1613).
Galileo invented many mechanical devices such as the pump and the
telescope (1609). His telescopes helped him make many astronomic observations
which proved the Copernican system. Galileo’s observations got him into trouble
with the Catholic Church, however, because of his noble ancestry, the church was
not harsh with him. Galileo was convicted after publishing his book Dialogue, and
he was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Galileo died in 1642 in
his home outside of Florence.

1.3.5.2 Ernest Mach (1838-1916)

Ernst Mach was born in 1838 in
Chrlice (now part of Brno), when
Czechia was still a part of the
Austro–Hungary empire. Johann,
Mach’s father, was a high school
teacher who taught Ernst at home
until he was 14, when he studied
in the gymnasium before he entered
the university of Vienna. He grad-
uated from Vienna in 1860. There
Mach wrote his thesis ”On Electrical
Discharge and Induction.” At first he
received a professorship position at
Graz in mathematics (1864) and was Fig. 1.6: Photo of Ernest Mach
then offered a position as a profes-
sor of surgery at the university of Salzburg, but he declined. He then turned to
physics, and in 1867 he received a position in the Technical University in Prague 47
where he taught experimental physics for the next 28 years.
Mach was also a great thinker/philosopher and influenced the theory of
relativity dealing with frame of reference. In 1863, Ernest Mach (1836 - 1916)
published Die Machanik in which he formalized this argument. Later, Einstein was
greatly influenced by it, and in 1918, he named it Mach’s Principle. This was one
of the primary sources of inspiration for Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.

47 It is interesting to point out that Prague provided us two of the top influential researchers[:] E. Mach
and E.R.G. Eckert.