Minkowski spacetime: A hundred years later. Dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the publication of Hermann Minkowski's paper ``Raum und Zeit'' in 1909 (Q1039321)

As the title suggests, this book celebrates the 100th anniversary of Minkowski's work on four-dimensional spacetime [Raum und Zeit. Leipzig u. Berlin: B. G. Teubner. 14 S. gr. \(8^\circ\). Deutsche Math.-Ver. 18, 76--88; Phys. Zs. 10, 104--111; Verb. Naturf. Ges. Cöln 80, \(2_1\), 4--9 (1909; JFM 40.0745.02)] with a collection of papers, covering many different aspects of this subject. It starts with a reprint of the original paper, which is presented together with a (new) English translation by D. Lehmkuhl. In this work Minkowski introduces spacetime as a new fundamental concept from which space and time can be derived. Today this is a very familiar idea, not only among theoretical and mathematical physicists, but also in a broad scientific audience. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, however, this was a revolutionary and quite remarkable step, and Minkowski announces it exactly in this way in the first paragraph of his paper. Instead of collecting experimental evidence which are in conflict with the (back then) established concepts of space and time and building his new model inductively on them (what a physicist would most likely have done), Minkowski follows in his work a deductive approach. He starts with an analysis of the Poincaré group \(G_c\) associated to a particular speed of light \(c\) and the Galilei group \(G_\infty\) which can be regarded as the limit of \(G_c\) for \(c \to \infty\). (Note that both groups weren't known under these names back then, and neither of them was well studied.) Physically \(G_\infty\) is well motivated as the invariance group of Newton's equation. \(G_c\) on the other hand is ``mathematically more intelligible''. Therefore, Minkowski argues, a mathematician could have come to the conclusion -- \textit{without further motivation} -- that not \(G_\infty\) is the correct spacetime symmetry group but \(G_c\) for a very large value (in usual units) of \(c\). We know, of course, that the development of relativity theory did not go this way (and Minkowski acknowledges it). Nevertheless, he follows this idea and asks which physical consequences the new symmetry group would have. In this context he visits a large part of, nowadays well-known, relativistic physics, including in particular the fact he already announced at the beginning: space and time lose their absolute and independent meaning. In modern terms we would say that space (or more precisely simultaneity) and time (at the same location) depend on the chosen inertial frame. Other topics discussed here include: time dilation in terms of spacetime diagrams (which is discussed in a very modern way), classical mechanics, and electrodynamics. Most of this material is actually based on the work of others (like Einstein and Lorentz). Minkowski, however, deserves the credit to have reformulated everything in a four-dimensional spacetime language. In this context he develops concepts and terminologies like ``world-line'' which are still in use. All in all this is a very impressive work, not only because of the groundbreaking new ideas and the great impact it has had. It is also nicely written and the language is a very pleasant contrast to the dry style most publications use nowadays. The rest of the book is then divided into three parts focusing on historical, physical and philosophical aspects. The historical part consists of two papers. First, Leo Corry discusses in ``Hermann Minkowski, Relativity and the axiomatic approach to physics'' the general background to Minkowski's approach. Special attention is drawn here to the interaction between mathematics and physics, which stood at the center of attention of the mathematicians in Göttingen at the beginning of the twentieth century. In particular the relation between Minkowski's work and Hilbert's program for the axiomatization of physics is discussed. The second historical article ``Minkowski's modern world'' by Scott Walker concentrates on the public response on Minkowski's work. The author points out here that much of the excitement was a reaction of the paradigm shift from Euclidean geometry to four dimensional Minkowski geometry as a basis for the description of physical reality. Part II of this book concentrates on implications of Minkowski spacetime for Theoretical Physics. The article ``Hermann Minkowski and Special Relativity'' by Graham Hall reviews the physical aspects of Minkowski space concentrating in particular on electrodynamics. In ``The rich structure of Minkowski Space'' Domenico Giulini discusses then various aspects of Minkowski geometry in a modern mathematical language. Two different aspects are treated here in greater detail: First the role of spacetime symmetry is analysed together with the question which level of structure leads to which symmetry group (e.g., this includes the well-known result by \textit{E. C. Zeeman} [``Causality implies the Lorentz group'', J. Math. Phys. 5, 490--493 (1964; Zbl 0133.23205)] that any (not necessarily continuous) bijection which leaves the causal relations invariant is a Poincaré transformation plus a dilation). A second focus of this paper are non-trivial structures in Minkowski space. This includes discussions of simultaneity, causal sets and the corresponding lattice, and rigid motion. The rest of Part II is devoted to quantum aspects. W. G. Unruh considers in ``Minkowski spacetime and quantum mechanics'' various aspects of compatibility between quantum theory and special relativity. This includes in particular conceptional problems of relativistic quantum mechanics (i.e., theories with a fixed particle number in contrast to quantum field theories) and a discussion of Bell inequalities (where the misconception that Bell inequalities imply non-locality of quantum theory is refuted). Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin consider in ``Modern spacetime and undecidability'' time measurements by ``real'' clocks involving quantum fluctuations. They argue that this leads to an effective time evolution, which is non-unitary and therefore allows pure states to evolve into mixed states. The last two papers of this part, ``Quantum spacetimes. Beyond the continuum of Minkowski and Einstein'' by Abhay Ashtekar and ``Spacetime extensions in quantum gravity'' by Martin Bojowald are quite similar in nature. The central question in both contributions is whether and how the problem of singularities arising in \textit{general} relativity can be rectified by quantum gravity. The corresponding discussions use Robertson Walker and black hole spacetimes as special examples (i.e., the authors use ``mini'' superspace models). The last part of this volume is devoted to conceptual and philosophical issues. It starts with ``The adolescence of Relativity: Einstein, Minkowski, and the philosophy of space and time'' by Dennis Dieks. Here the philosophical points of view (on relativity) of Einstein and Minkowski are compared and it is argued that they are very similar, in the sense that both thought of relativity as a theory about the general form of physical laws. Yvon Gauthier discusses then in ``Hermann Minkowski: From geometry of numbers to physical geometry'' relations between Minkowski's work on spacetime and on his work on number theory (spacetime diagrams are compared to number grids). In the next contribution ``The mystical formula and the mystery of Khronos'' by Orfeo Bertolami different concepts of space and time are discussed and compared to Minkowski's point of view. In ``Physical laws and worldlines in Minkowski space'' Vesselin Petkov explores an idea by Minkowski that ``the laws of physics might find their most prefect expression as interrelations between worldlines'' (cited from Minkowski's paper). Paul S. Wesson reviews in ``Time as an illusion'' an idea due to Einstein, Eddington Hoyle and Ballard that time is a subjective label, whose primary purpose is to order events. Finally the volume is closed with the contribution ``Consequences of Minkowski's unification of space and time for a philosophy of nature'' by Herbert Pietschmann. Here Minkowski spacetime is discussed within ``philosophy of nature'' which is defined as opposed to the model of physics as well as to epistemology and transcendental philosophy.