THE FOURTH DIMENSION. (PMM 401)

MINKOWSKI, HERMANN.

Raum und Zeit. (Space and Time)

Leipzig, F.C.W. Vogel, 1909. Lex8vo. Contemp. Hcloth. Gilt spine. Edges slightly rubbed. Clean and fine. in "Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte. 80. Vesammlung zu Cöln 20.- 26. September 1908. Herausgegeben...Albert Wangerin. Zweiter Theil. 1. Hälfte. Naturwissenschaftliche Abteilungen". pp. 4-9. The whole volume offered with part I-II: (4),245,X,(2),598,124,(2) pp.

First appearance of this milestone paper in the development of the theory of Special relativity. The paper offered is the first edition, first printing of the text from Minkowski's famous address held at the 80th meeting of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte, in Köln the 21st September 1908. There exists three other printings of this address from the same year:

1. Physikalische Zeitschrift, volume 10, number 3 (1. February, 1909.), pp.104-111;
2. Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, volume 18, number 2 (issued monthly - so February), pp.75-88;
3. (Seperate edition by Teubner).

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strenght. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a inf of union of the two will preserve an independent reality" He ended as follows: 'the validitywothout exception of the world postulate (i.e., relativity postulates), I like to think, is the thrue nucleus of an electromagnetic image of the world, which, discovered by Lorentz, and further developed by Einstein, now lies open in the full light of the day'"(Pais in "Subtle is the Lord", p. 152).

Here (in the paper offered) "he introduced the notion that made possible the expansion of the Relativity Theory of Einstein from its specific to its general form. The technical description of Minkowski's hypothesis is the four-dimensional Space-time continuum....Minkowski's space-time hypothesis was in effect a restatement of Einstein's basic principle in a form that greatly enchanced its plausability and also introduced importent new developments. Hitherto natural phenomena had been thought to occur in a space of three dimensions and to flow uniformly through time. Minkowski maintained that the separation of space and time is a false conception; thet time is itself a dimension, comparable to lenght, breadth and height: and that therefore the true conception of reality was constituted by a space-time continuum possessing these four dimensions. This strongly reinforced Einstein's objections to absolute concepts and supported his view of the relativity of events in nature." (PMM No. 401, only listing the print from "Jahresberichte der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung. Leipzig 1909.").

Order-nr.: 42836