Minkowski, Mathematicians, and the Mathematical Theory of Relativity

T HE IMPORTANCE OF THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY for twentieth-century physics, and the appearance of the Göttingen mathematician Hermann Minkowski at a turning point in its history have both attracted significant historical attention. The rapid growth in scientific and philosophical interest in the principle of relativity has been linked to the intervention of Minkowski by Tetu Hirosige, who identified Minkowski’s publications as the turning point for the theory of relativity, and gave him credit for having clarified its fundamental importance for all of physics (Hirosige 1968: 46; 1976: 78). Lewis Pyenson has placed Minkowski’s work in the context of a mathematical approach to physics popular in Göttingen, and attributed its success to the prevalence of belief in a neo-Leibnizian notion of pre-established harmony between pure mathematics and physics (Pyenson 1985, 1987: 95). The novelty to physics of the aesthetic canon embodied in Minkowski’s theory was emphasized by Peter Galison (1979), and several scholars have clarified technical and epistemological aspects of Minkowski’s theory. In particular, the introduction of sophisticated mathematical techniques to theoretical physics by Minkowski and others is a theme illustrated by Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach. In what follows, we address another aspect of Minkowski’s role in the history of the theory of relativity: his disciplinary advocacy. Minkowski’s 1908 Cologne lecture “Raum und Zeit” (Minkowski 1909) may be understood as an effort to ex-