"David Hilbert—the undisputed, foremost living mathematician in the world and lifelong close friend and collaborator of the by then deceased Minkowski—had already presented to the Göttingen Academy his own version of the same equations a few days earlier [than Einstein]. Although Minkowski and Hilbert accomplished their most important achievements in pure mathematical fields, their respective contributions to relativity should in no sense be seen as merely occasional excursions into the field of theoretical physics. Minkowski and Hilbert were motivated by much more than a desire to apply their exceptional mathematical abilities opportunistically... On the contrary, Minkowski's and Hilbert's contributions to relativity are best understood as an organic part of their overall scientific careers."
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Academics from GermanyAgnosticsMathematicians from GermanyPhysicists from GermanyLogicians from Germany
Original Language: English
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Sources
Leo Corry, on the Relativity priority dispute "Hermann Minkowski and the Postulate of Relativity", in Archive for History of Exact Sciences Vol.51, No.4 (1997)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hilbert
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David Hilbert
1862 – 1943
deutscher Mathematiker
46 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by David Hilbert →
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