Minkowski, Hermann (1864–1909)

Russian-born German mathematician whose introduction of the concept of space-time was essential to the genesis of the general theory of relativity.

Minkowski was born near Kaunas and studied at Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia). In 1896 he became professor at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, returning to Germany in 1902 as professor at Göttingen.

Minkowski's concept of the geometry of numbers constituted an important addition to number theory, and his research into that topic led him to consider certain geometric properties in a space of n dimensions and so to hit upon his notion of the space-time continuum. The principle of relativity, already put forward by Jules Poincaré and Albert Einstein, led Minkowski to the view that space and time were interlinked. In Raum und Zeit/Space and Time (1909), he proposed a four-dimensional manifold in which space and time became inseparable. The central idea was, as Einstein allowed, necessary for the working-out of the general theory of relativity.