Hermann Minkowski

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Hermann Minkowski

Hermann Minkowski , 1864-1909, Russian mathematician. He was educated in Germany and was professor at the Univ. of Königsberg (1894-96), the Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (1896-1902), and the Univ. of Göttingen (1902-9). He is well known for use of geometric methods in the theory of numbers and for having evolved a four-dimensional geometry of space and time that influenced the formulation of the general theory of relativity. He also contributed to the theory of quadratic forms.

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Minkowski, Hermann

A Dictionary of Astronomy | 1997 | Â© A Dictionary of Astronomy 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Minkowski, Hermann (1864–1909)Germanmathematician, born in modern Lithuania. He was the first to see that the principle of relativity set out by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853–1928) and A.Einstein implied that space and time were not separate entities, but components of a four-dimensional spacetime. His mathematical model of spacetime provided the foundation for all subsequent developments of relativity, and allowed Einstein to move from special to general relativity.

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