Hermann Minkowski
(born June 22, 1864, Aleksotas,
Russian Empire
[now in
Kaunas
, Lithuania]?died Jan. 12, 1909,
Gottingen
, Germany) was a German mathematician who developed the geometrical theory of numbers and who made numerous contributions to
number theory
,
mathematical physics
, and the theory of relativity. His idea of
combining
the three dimensions of physical
space
with that of time into a four-dimensional “Minkowski space”?
space-time
?laid the mathematical foundations for
Albert Einstein
’s
special theory of relativity
.
The son of German parents living in Russia, Minkowski returned to
Germany
with them in 1872 and spent his youth in the royal Prussian city of Konigsberg. A gifted prodigy, he began his studies at the
University of Konigsberg
and the
University of Berlin
at age 15. Three years later he was awarded the “Grand Prix des Sciences Mathematiques” by the
French Academy of Sciences
for his paper on the representation of numbers as a sum of five squares. During his teenage years in Konigsberg he met and befriended another young mathematical
prodigy
,
David Hilbert
, with whom he worked closely both at Konigsberg and later at the
University of Gottingen
.
Britannica Quiz
Numbers and Mathematics
After earning his doctorate in 1885, Minkowski taught
mathematics
at the Universities of
Bonn
(1885?94), Konigsberg (1894?96),
Zurich
(1896?1902), and Gottingen (1902?09). Together with Hilbert, he pursued research on the electron theory of the Dutch physicist
Hendrik Lorentz
and its modification in Einstein’s
special theory
of relativity. In
Raum und Zeit
(1907; “Space and Time”) Minkowski gave his famous four-dimensional geometry based on the
group
of
Lorentz transformations
of special relativity theory. His major work in number theory was
Geometrie der Zahlen
(1896; “Geometry of Numbers”). His works were collected in David Hilbert (ed.),
Gesammelte Abhandlungen
, 2 vol. (1911; “Collected Papers”).