MINKOWSKI Herman

MINKOWSKI Herman (22.06.1864-12.01.1909) German mathematician and physicist, doctor of philosophy (1885), Professor (1892). Genus. in Aleksotah (now Kaunas rn). Studied in Altshtadtskoy gymnasium in KцІnigsberg, and then in Berlin University-max. In 1893 he was appointed extraordinary professor at Bonn University Press, from 1894 to 1896 led the department in Konigsberg University, those who had previously held the D. Gilbert. From 1896 to 1902 worked as a professor of Zap in Zurich, in 1902, took the chair at Gottingen University those.
Already on the final year of Zap was marked by a big prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences for research in the decomposition of integers by 5 squares. Much of the work M. devoted to the theory of numbers. He owns and works on geometry, topology, mathematical physics, hydrodynamics and the theory of capillarity. In each of these areas, the scientist has made a significant contribution. But Mr.. F. Ravens M. was the founder of modern geometric theory of numbers. The main focus of her study are the spatial lattice - a system of 'whole' points, t. e. points whose coordinates in a given rectilinear coordinate system (rectangular or oblique-angled) are expressed in whole numbers. Dimensional lattice are of great importance in geometry and crystallography, and yet their study is closely connected with the theory, in particular the arithmetic theory of quadratic forms. With the help of geometric lattices M. able to prove many well-known theorems in number theory and obtain many new results. Geometric methods in the theory of numbers displayed in a number of articles, Moscow, and in the systematic treatment of two books: 'The geometry of numbers' and 'Diophantine approximation' (1907). In 1896, scientists have established some important properties of multidimensional parallelohedra (convex polyhedra) and thus marked the beginning of an important section of the geometry - the theory of convex bodies.
Ideas geometrization M. realized in physics, in particular in the special theory of relativity. In his work 'Space and Time' (1909) he gave a geometric interpretation of the kinematics of special relativity and led a four-dimensional space with hyperbolic metric. M. expressed postulate that all physical laws must be invariant under the group of Lorentz transformations, and called it 'the world's postulate'. In 1908 came the fundamental work of M. 'Fundamentals of the theory of electromagnetic processes in moving bodies', which postulate the world is used to establish the equations of the electromagnetic field of any matter in motion.