Mathematician:Hermann Minkowski

Mathematician

Created and developed the field of geometry of numbers.

Nationality

German, of Polish and Jewish descent.

History

• Born: 22 June 1864, Alexotas, Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania)
• Died: 12 Jan 1909, Göttingen, Germany

Theorems and Definitions

• Minkowski Addition
• Minkowski Diagram
• Minkowski Functional
• Minkowski Metric
• Minkowski Spacetime
• Minkowski Sum

• Minkowski-Bouligand Dimension (with Georges Louis Bouligand)

• Minkowski's Inequality
• Minkowski's Question Mark Function
• Minkowski's Theorem (Geometry of Numbers)
• Separating Axis Theorem

• Brunn-Minkowski Theorem (with Karl Hermann Brunn)
• Hasse-Minkowski Theorem (with Helmut Hasse)
• Minkowski-Steiner Formula (with Jakob Steiner)
• Smith-Minkowski-Siegel Mass Formula (with Henry John Stephen Smith and Carl Ludwig Siegel)

Results named for Hermann Minkowski can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for Hermann Minkowski can be found here.

Publications

• 1896: Geometrie der Zahlen
• 1907/1915: Das Relativitätsprinzip
• 1908: Die Grundgleichungen für die elektromagnetischen Vorgänge in bewegten Körpern
• 1909: Raum und Zeit
• 1967: Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Complete Discourses)

Notable Quotes

Integral numbers are the fountainhead of all mathematics.

-- Quoted by David M. Burton as an epigraph to Chapter $2$ of Elementary Number Theory, revised ed. ($1980$)

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Hermann Minkowski": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1980: David M. Burton: Elementary Number Theory (revised ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $2$: Divisibility Theory in the Integers
• 1989: Ephraim J. Borowski and Jonathan M. Borwein: Dictionary of Mathematics ... (previous) ... (next): Minkowski function or gauge function
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Minkowski, Hermann (1864-1909)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Minkowski, Hermann (1864-1909)
• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Minkowski, Hermann (1864-1909)
• 2021: Richard Earl and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (6th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Minkowski, Hermann (1864-1909)