3 2 0 D O C U M E N T 3 0 3 O N M A C H ’ S M O N U M E N T 303. “On Unveiling Ernst Mach’s Monument” [Einstein 1926q] Dated 10 June 1926 Published 12 June 1926 In: Neue Freie Presse, 12 June 1926, p. 11.[1] The importance of a thinker is much more evident to subsequent generations than to his own. A mountain must be viewed from some distance in order for one to be able to appreciate it as part of a mountain range with distance the small ones vanish and the large ones grow tall. Ernst Mach’s most powerful motive was philosophical: the dignity of all scien- tific concepts and theorems rests solely on the individual experiences to which the concepts refer. This principle governed him in all his inquiries and gave him the energy to approach the received concepts of physics (space, time, inertia) with an independence unheard of in his day. To us, Mach’s fine individual accomplish- ments in the area of physics and physiological psychology are overwhelmed by the powerful impetus that physics owes him for his critique of fundamental concepts, which his contemporaries held to be infertile and which later became the most ef- fective mainsprings for the formulation of relativity theory.[2] Philosophers and scientists often justifiably faulted Mach for blurring the logical independence of concepts from “sensations” because he wanted to reduce the real- ity of what exists, a presupposition without which physics is impossible, to the re- ality of what is experienced, and because from a blinkered point of view such as his he wanted to dismiss fruitful physical theories of the time (atomic theory, the kinetic theory of gases).[3] On the other hand, however, that grandiose one-sided- ness gave him the power of productive criticism, which opened the way in other areas of development. That is why his work decisively helped to guide develop- ments of the last century.