Minkowski Space - History

History

In 1906 it was noted by Henri Poincaré that, by taking time to be the imaginary part of the fourth spacetime coordinate √−1 ct, a Lorentz transformation can be regarded as a rotation of coordinates in a four-dimensional Euclidean space with three real coordinates representing space, and one imaginary coordinate, representing time, as the fourth dimension. Since the space is then a pseudo-Euclidean space, the rotation is a representation of a hyperbolic rotation, although Poincaré did not give this interpretation, his purpose being only to explain the Lorentz transformation in terms of the familiar Euclidean rotation. This idea was elaborated by Hermann Minkowski, who used it to restate the Maxwell equations in four dimensions, showing directly their invariance under the Lorentz transformation. He further reformulated in four dimensions the then-recent theory of special relativity of Einstein. From this he concluded that time and space should be treated equally, and so arose his concept of events taking place in a unified four-dimensional space-time continuum. In a further development, he gave an alternative formulation of this idea that did not use the imaginary time coordinate, but represented the four variables (x, y, z, t) of space and time in coordinate form in a four dimensional affine space. Points in this space correspond to events in space-time. In this space, there is a defined light-cone associated with each point (see diagram above), and events not on the light-cone are classified by their relation to the apex as space-like or time-like. It is principally this view of space-time that is current nowadays, although the older view involving imaginary time has also influenced special relativity. Minkowski, aware of the fundamental restatement of the theory which he had made, said:

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 strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. – Hermann Minkowski, 1908

For further historical information see references Galison (1979), Corry (1997), Walter (1999).