Einstein Archives - Manhattan Rare Book Company

MINKOWSKI, HERMAN

Raum und Zeit [Space and Time]

"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." -Minkowski

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of Minkowski’s explanation of the fourth dimension, a critical bridge between Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity.

"In “’Space and Time’, read by Minkowski in Cologne only a few months before his death, he introduced the notion that made possible the expansion of the relativity theory of Einstein from its specific (1905) to its general form (1916). Minkowski’s space-time hypothesis was in effect a restatement of Einstein’s basic principle in a form that greatly enhanced its plausibility and also introduced important 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 time and space is a false conception; that time itself is a dimension, comparable to length, 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” (Printing and the Mind of Man, 401).

In: Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte, Vol 80, pp. 4-9. Leipzig: F.W. Vogel, 1909. The whole volume (218 pp. offered). Octavo, original wrappers. A little toning to top edge of front wrapper and spine; library and release stamp of Universitatsbibliothek Munich on title verso and contents leaf. An outstanding copy, rare in original wrappers.

NOTE: There were three 1909 (simultaneous or nearly simultaneous) journal printings of Raum und Zeit. The modern consensus is that this printing in "Verhandlungen" appeared first; the printing in "Jahresbericht" is cited by PMM.

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