Changes

After discovering [[quaternion]]s, [[William Rowan Hamilton]] commented, "Time is said to have only one dimension, and space to have three dimensions. ... The mathematical quaternion partakes of both these elements; in technical [[language]] it may be said to be 'time plus space', or 'space plus time': and in this sense it has, or at least involves a reference to, four dimensions. And how the One of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of [[Symbols]] girdled be."  [[Lorentz]] discovered some invariances of [[Maxwell's equations]] late in the 19th century which were to become the basis of [[Einstein]]'s theory of special relativity.  Fiction [[author]]s were also in on the game: [[Edgar Allan Poe]] stated in his essay on cosmology titled ''Eureka'' (1848) that "Space and duration are one." This is the first known published work suggesting this connection between space and time, Poe reaching this conclusion after approximately 90 pages of philosophical reasoning. In 1895, in his novel ''[[The Time Machine]]'', [[H.G. Wells]] wrote, "There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our [[consciousness]] moves along it." He added, "Viking people…know very well that time is only a kind of space."  It has always been the case that time and space are measured using real numbers, and the suggestion that the dimensions of space and time could be switched could have been raised by the first people to have formalized [[physics]], but ultimately, the contradictions between Maxwell's laws and [[Galilean relativity]] had to come to a head before the [[idea]] of spacetime was ready to become mainstream.

After discovering [[quaternion]]s, [[William Rowan Hamilton]] commented, "Time is said to have only one dimension, and space to have three dimensions. ... The mathematical quaternion partakes of both these elements; in technical [[language]] it may be said to be 'time plus space', or 'space plus time': and in this sense it has, or at least involves a reference to, four dimensions. And how the One of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of [[Symbols]] girdled be."  [[Lorentz]] discovered some invariances of [[Maxwell's equations]] late in the 19th century which were to become the basis of [[Einstein]]'s theory of special relativity.  Fiction [[author]]s were also in on the game: [[Edgar Allan Poe]] stated in his essay on cosmology titled ''Eureka'' (1848) that "Space and duration are one." This is the first known published work suggesting this connection between space and time, Poe reaching this conclusion after approximately 90 pages of philosophical reasoning. In 1895, in his novel ''[[The Time Machine]]'', [[H.G. Wells]] wrote, "There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our [[consciousness]] moves along it." He added, "Viking people…know very well that time is only a kind of space."  It has always been the case that time and space are measured using real numbers, and the suggestion that the dimensions of space and time could be switched could have been raised by the first people to have formalized [[physics]], but ultimately, the contradictions between Maxwell's laws and [[Galilean relativity]] had to come to a head before the [[idea]] of spacetime was ready to become mainstream.

While spacetime can be viewed as a consequence of [[Albert Einstein]]'s 1905 theory of [[special relativity]], it was first explicitly proposed mathematically by one of his teachers, the mathematician [[Hermann Minkowski]], in a 1908 essay [http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Raum_und_Zeit_(Minkowski) "Raum und Zeit"]. Published in Physikalische Zeitschrift '''10''' 104-111 (1909) and Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung '''18''' 75-88 (1909). For an English translation, see Lorentz et al. (1952). building on and extending Einstein's work. His concept of [[Minkowski space]] is the earliest treatment of space and time as two aspects of a unified whole, the essence of [[special relativity]]. The idea of Minkowski space also led to special relativity being viewed in a more geometrical way, this geometric viewpoint of spacetime being important in general relativity too. (For an English translation of Minkowski's article, see Lorentz et al. 1952.) The 1926 thirteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica included an article by Einstein titled "Space-Time"."[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117889 Space-Time,]" ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', 13th ed.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_time]

While spacetime can be viewed as a consequence of [[Albert Einstein]]'s 1905 theory of [[special relativity]], it was first explicitly proposed mathematically by one of his teachers, the mathematician [[Hermann Minkowski]], in a 1908 essay [https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Raum_und_Zeit_(Minkowski) "Raum und Zeit"]. Published in Physikalische Zeitschrift '''10''' 104-111 (1909) and Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung '''18''' 75-88 (1909). For an English translation, see Lorentz et al. (1952). building on and extending Einstein's work. His concept of [[Minkowski space]] is the earliest treatment of space and time as two aspects of a unified whole, the essence of [[special relativity]]. The idea of Minkowski space also led to special relativity being viewed in a more geometrical way, this geometric viewpoint of spacetime being important in general relativity too. (For an English translation of Minkowski's article, see Lorentz et al. 1952.) The 1926 thirteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica included an article by Einstein titled "Space-Time"."[https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117889 Space-Time,]" ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', 13th ed.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_time]

[[Category: Physics]]

[[Category: Physics]]

[[Category: Cosmology]]

[[Category: Cosmology]]