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Minkowski Spacetime: A Hundred Years Later pp 259–283Cite as

The Mystical Formula and The Mystery of Khronos

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Part of the book series: Fundamental Theories of Physics ((FTPH,volume 165))

Abstract

In 1908, Minkowski put forward the idea that invariance under what we call today the Lorentz group, GL(1, 3, R), would be more meaningful in a four-dimensional space-time continuum. This suggestion implies that space and time are intertwined entities so that, kinematic and dynamical quantities can be expressed as vectors, or more generally by tensors, in the four-dimensional space-time. Minkowski also showed how causality should be structured in the four-dimensional vector space. The mathematical formulation proposed by Minkowski made its generalization to curved spaces quite natural, leaving the doors to the General Theory of Relativity and many other developments ajar.

Nevertheless, it is remarkable that this deceptively simple formulation eluded many researchers of space and time, and goes against our every day experience and perception, according to which space and and time are distinct entities. In this contribution, we discuss these contradictory views, analyze how they are seen in contemporary physics and comment on the challenges that space-time explorers face.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal

    Orfeu Bertolami

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  1. Orfeu Bertolami
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Correspondence to Orfeu Bertolami .

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  1. Liberal Arts College, Concordia University, de Maisonneuve Blvd. West 1455, Montreal, H3G 1M8, Canada

    Vesselin Petkov

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Bertolami, O. (2010). The Mystical Formula and The Mystery of Khronos. In: Petkov, V. (eds) Minkowski Spacetime: A Hundred Years Later. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 165. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3475-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3475-5_11

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