Abstract
The special theory of relativity was given a remarkable geometric interpretation by Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909). While teaching at the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule of Zürich (today the ETH Zürich), one of his students was Albert Einstein . Minkowski presented his ideas on Einstein’s theory in some papers and lectures, between 1907 and 1909.
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Notes
- 1.
The exponential function with a matrix as an argument is a formal way of writing. The actual meaning of \(e^M\), where M is a \(n\times n\) matrix, is the power series expansion
where I represents the \(n\times n\) unit matrix.
- 2.
The angular momentum conservation is obtained, through Noether’s theorem, from the invariance of the action with respect to three-dimensional rotations (see Sect. 8.7.3).
- 3.
This reference system is also called in literature system of the centre of inertia or the “C-system”.
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Chaichian, M., Merches, I., Radu, D., Tureanu, A. (2016). Minkowski Space. In: Electrodynamics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17381-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17381-3_7
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