Alois Höfler — polymath
pp. 237-276
in: John Blackmore, Shogo Tanaka (eds), Ernst Mach's Vienna 1895–1930, Berlin, Springer, 2001Abstract
Alois Höfler was born in Kirchdorf in Upper Austria on April 6, 1853. Both his father and mother died while he was in his early and middle teens. He and his two younger sisters were then raised by a second mother, Amalie Böheim, with great concern and care. He attended both Volkschule and Gymnasium in Vienna.1 It is interesting that Ernst Mach who also had two younger sisters like Höfler also became a physicist. In fact, Alfred Adler, the one-time follower of Freud, made much of the tendency of "big" brothers to go into science, perhaps partly on the basis of Höfler, Boltzmann, Einstein, and Mach, who were all the oldest children in their families.
