Josef Popper (Josef Popper-Lynkeus)
1838–1921
Austrian inventor. Born and raised in the Jewish ghetto in Kolin, Bohemia. Studied engineering in Prague, 1854–8. Settled in Vienna in 1858 as a railway official. Invented a steam valve in 1867; retired on the proceeds in 1898. Freethinker and author who published works on political economy, aeronautics, and the subconscious. He used the pseudonym Lynkeus when publishing on the subconscious, and by 1921 was referring to himself and was known as Popper-Lynkeus. A close friend of Ernst Mach and respected by Albert Einstein.
Sources
Blüh 1952, p. 216, n. 7
Johnston 1972, pp. 308–11
NDB
Bibliography
Blüh, Otto. 1952. The value of inspiration: a study on Julius Robert Mayer and Josef Popper-Lynkeus. Isis 43: 211–20.
Johnston, William M. 1972. The Austrian mind: an intellectual and social history, 1848–1938. Berkeley: University of California Press.
NDB: Neue deutsche Biographie. Under the auspices of the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 27 vols. (A–Wettiner) to date. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 1953–.
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