Hermann Minkowski

Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909) was a prominent member of the famous golden epoch of mathematics at Gottingen University in Germany, which started with Karl Friedrich Gauss in 1807 and continued into the twentieth century (until the beginning of World War II). Minkowski is well known for his foundational work introducing the ""Minkowski spacetime"" in special relativity. He made significant contributions to number theory, especially in geometry of numbers and other topics. Minkowski was also known as an excellent teacher. The present book is an English translation of notes (never published) from the course on number theory taught by Minkowski in Winter 1907/08. The main topic of the course was the Fermat theorem and various methods used to prove it at that time. The translation is appended by the foreword written by John Little, who also edited the translation. The book can be helpful and interesting to students in number theory and to anyone interested in mathematics and its history.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1910.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1910.

Not only the general public, but even students of physics appear to believe that the physics concept of spacetime was introduced by Einstein. This is both unfortunate and unfair. It was Hermann Minkowski (Einstein's mathematics professor) who announced the new four-dimensional (spacetime) view of the world in 1908, which he deduced from experimental physics by decoding the profound message hidden in the failed experiments designed to discover absolute motion. Minkowski realized that the images coming from our senses, which seem to represent an evolving three-dimensional world, are only glimpses of a higher four-dimensional reality that is not divided into past, present, and future since space and all moments of time form an inseparable entity (spacetime). Einstein's initial reaction to Minkowski's view of spacetime and the associated with it four-dimensional physics (also introduced by Minkowski) was not quite favorable: "Since the mathematicians have invaded the relativity theory, I do not understand it myself any more." However, later Einstein adopted not only Minkowski's spacetime physics (which was crucial for Einstein's revolutionary theory of gravity as curvature of spacetime), but also Minkowski's world view as evident from Einstein's letter of condolences to the widow of his longtime friend Besso: "Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Besso left this world on 15 March 1955; Einstein followed him on 18 April 1955. This volume contains Hermann Minkowski's four works, which laid the foundations of spacetime physics: Space and Time, The Relativity Principle, The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies and A Derivation of the Fundamental Equations for the Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies from the Standpoint of the Theory of Electrons. These papers have never been published together either in German or English and the second and the last paper have not been translated into English so far.

This is the first publication (in German or English) of Hermann Minkowski's three papers on relativity together: (i) The Relativity Principle - lecture given at the meeting of the G ttingen Mathematical Society on November 5, 1907 (the first English translation); (ii) The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies - lecture given at the meeting of the G ttingen Scientific Society on December 21, 1907 (new translation); (iii) Space and Time - lecture given at the 80th Meeting of Natural Scientists in Cologne on September 21, 1908 (new translation).

Dieser Buchtitel ist Teil des Digitalisierungsprojekts Springer Book Archives mit Publikationen, die seit den Anfängen des Verlags von 1842 erschienen sind. Der Verlag stellt mit diesem Archiv Quellen für die historische wie auch die disziplingeschichtliche Forschung zur Verfügung, die jeweils im historischen Kontext betrachtet werden müssen. Dieser Titel erschien in der Zeit vor 1945 und wird daher in seiner zeittypischen politisch-ideologischen Ausrichtung vom Verlag nicht beworben.