Hermann Minkowski
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Hermann Minkowski (June 22, 1864 – January 12, 1909 in Göttingen) was a German mathematician who developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.
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[edit] Early life and education
Hermann Minkowski was born in Aleksotas (a suburb of Kaunas, Lithuania) to a family of German, Polish, and Jewish descent. He was educated in Germany at the Universities of Berlin and Königsberg, where he achieved his doctorate in 1885 under direction of Ferdinand von Lindemann. While still a student at Königsberg, in 1883 he was awarded the Mathematics Prize of the French Academy of Sciences for his manuscript on the theory of quadratic forms.
[edit] Work and research
Minkowski taught at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, Königsberg and Zurich. At the Federal Polytechnic Institute, today the ETH Zurich, he was one of Einstein's teachers.
Minkowski explored the arithmetic of quadratic forms, especially concerning n variables, and his research into that topic led him to consider certain geometric properties in a space of n dimensions. In 1896, he presented his geometry of numbers, a geometrical method that solved problems in number theory.
In 1902, he joined the Mathematics Department of Göttingen and became one of the close colleagues of David Hilbert, whom he first met in Koenigsberg. Constantin Carathéodory was one of his students there.
[edit] Relativity
By 1907 Minkowski realised that the special theory of relativity, introduced by Einstein in 1905 and based on previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could be best understood in a four dimensional space, since known as "Minkowski space", in which the time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space-time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be nicely represented. This nice representation certainly helped Einstein's quest for general relativity. The beginning part of his address delivered at the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (September 21, 1908) is now famous:
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The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. |
[edit] Death and honours
Minkowski died suddenly of appendicitis in Göttingen. He was the brother of Oskar Minkowski (1858-1931), a well-known physician and researcher.
The asteroid 12493 Minkowski was named in his honour.
[edit] See also
- Abraham-Minkowski controversy
- Brunn-Minkowski theorem
- Hasse-Minkowski theorem
- Minkowski addition
- Minkowski-Bouligand dimension
- Minkowski (crater)
- Minkowski diagram
- Minkowski functional
- Minkowski inequality
- Minkowski's question mark function
- Minkowski space
- Minkowski-Steiner formula
- Minkowski's theorem
[edit] References
- Minkowski, H. (1896). Geometrie der Zahlen. Leipzig: Teubner.
[edit] External links
- O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Hermann Minkowski". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- Hermann Minkowski at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
