Josef Popper-Lynkeus was an Austrian inventor, social reformer, and philosopher. Now almost completely forgotten, Popper enjoyed great fame in the early years of the twentieth century and on several topics his writings are far from dated.

Life and Works

Popper grew up in the ghetto of the small Bohemian town of Kolin. At the age of sixteen he began his studies in mathematics and physics at the German Polytechnikum in Prague. Four years later he moved to Vienna, where he attended lectures first at the Imperial Polytechnikum and later at the University of Vienna. In spite of his acknowledged brilliance, Popper was not able to secure a teaching position, partly because he was Jewish and partly because of his radical opinions on religious and social questions. For some time he had a minor clerical job with the National Railways in southern Hungary. Returning to...