engineering

Karl Flach

Karl Flach is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Karl Flach rather than just read about it. In short: Karl Flach (Villmar, 15 August 1821 - Bay of Valparaíso, 3 May 1866) was a German mechanic and engineer who designed and built the Flach, the first Chilean submarine. Biography Born Johann Anton Flach, he was the son of watchmaker Heinrich Flach and his wife Margaretha.

Key takeaways

Karl Flach belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Karl Flach to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Karl Flach from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Karl Flach (Villmar, 15 August 1821 - Bay of Valparaíso, 3 May 1866) was a German mechanic and engineer who designed and built the Flach, the first Chilean submarine.

Biography Born Johann Anton Flach, he was the son of watchmaker Heinrich Flach and his wife Margaretha. According to another version, originated in the studies of one of his great-grandchildren, Guillermo Stegen Ahumada, his birth name was Gottfried Cornelius. He was forced to change his identity to Karl Flach, the name of a deceased man, after his failed participation in the 1848 revolution that tried to overthrow the Kaiser. With his wife and son Heinrich (Enrique) Flach, he traveled on the sailboat Australia from Hamburg to Chile on 3 April 1852, where upon arrival he called himself Karl August Flach. In 1865 and 1866 Karl Flach designed and built the submarine Flach, powered by the force of the crew members and equipped with two guns. The submarine was 12.5 metres (41 ft) long and 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) wide, with a speed of 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) to 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph). The crew was made up of Flach and his 16-year-old son, two Chileans (Adolfo Pulgar and Francisco Rodríguez), five Germans (Valentín Baum, Gustavo Maas, Augusto Warmuth, German Schmidt and Luis Grinewinke) and two French people, totalling 11 people. The submarine had been commissioned by the Chilean government of José Joaquín Pérez who wanted to oppose the Spanish in the Chincha Islands War following the Bombardment of Valparaíso. The submarine, with Karl Flach as captain, carried out several successful test and dive trips. On 3 May 1866, the submarine made a dive without warning. The submarine sank in the Bay of Valparaíso with its eleven-member crew. Rescue attempts were unsuccessful. In 2018, the wreck of the submarine was allegedly found.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Karl Flach

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Karl Flach claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Karl Flach before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Karl Flach ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Karl Flach

In research: Karl Flach appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Karl Flach in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Karl Flach is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1821 births, 1866 deaths, 19th-century German engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Karl Flach outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Karl Flach in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Karl Flach means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Karl Flach out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Karl Flach in simple terms?

Karl Flach (Villmar, 15 August 1821 - Bay of Valparaíso, 3 May 1866) was a German mechanic and engineer who designed and built the Flach, the first Chilean submarine. Biography Born Johann Anton Flach, he was the son of watchmaker Heinrich Flach and his wife Margaretha.

Why does Karl Flach matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Karl Flach?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Karl Flach.