Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel
Mach (d.1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted
for his contributions to physics such as study of shock waves.
The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach
number in his honor.
Mach's main
contribution to physics involved his description and photographs
of spark shock-waves and then ballistic shock-waves. He showed
when a bullet or shell moved faster than the speed of sound; it
created a compression of air in front of it. Using schlieren
photography, he and his son Ludwig were able to photograph the
shadows of the invisible shock waves.
In homage, his name was given to: Mach, a lunar crater; Mach
bands, an optical illusion; Mach number, the unit for speed
relative to the speed of sound.
During the 1860s he discovered the physiological phenomenon that
has come to be called Mach’s bands, the tendency of the human
eye to see bright or dark bands near the boundaries between
areas of sharply differing illumination.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments