Talk:Hermann Minkowski

Odd assembly
Hi. I'm studying physics at a university, and we are currently studying relativity. In our book, there is a place where it reads

"the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians"

I refind this sentence on this particular Wikipedia page. I think it is odd, because a physician is a medical doctor, unlike a physicist, who does physics.

Perhaps this assembly really did consist of natural scientists and physicians, but I find it more likely to have consisted of natural scientists and physicists. I find both occurrences on Google, but can anyone reading this tell the correct name of the assembly?

Thank you --Andersas 16:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

supposed Jewish and Polish-ness
According to Britanica his parents were German. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ernham (talk • contribs) 01:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nonsense, a simple Google reveals hundreds of instances of their Jewishness, even the German wiki agrees. Sorry Ernham :) Greenman 13:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You know that it is possible to be both German and Jewish--Cronholm144 02:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * His last name is Polish not Lithuanian. --66.158.114.2 (talk) 15:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The reference provided does not cite original sources in this matter. I had assumed Minkowski was Jewish, but when I attempted to verify this, it was no longer clear. 72.205.23.221 (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

He was from a Jewish family of Polish descent. I presume his family was German-speaking. He was naturalized as a German citizen at some point after 1872, so if this is just about nationality, clearly his nationality as a mathematician was German. His ethnicity was Jewish, if you like Polish Jewish or German-speaking Jewish or German Jewish. He was not "Russian" in any other sense than having been born within the Russian Empire, and he was not "Lithuanian" in any other sense than having been born at a spot that is today part of Lithuania. --dab (𒁳) 11:10, 18 May 2014 (UTC)


 * By that logic, he was not "Polish" in any other sense than having been born within contemporary borders of the Kingdom of Poland. Bazzilic (talk) 08:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Hilbert's obituary
I have included a translation of Hilbert's orbituary on his death because I thought that it shows impressively the deep friendship between these two mathematicians. Could an English native speaker please correct my supposedly bumpy translation?

Thank you -- Furfer 2007-5-20 14:19 CEST

Non native English myself, but i think the end of last sentence doesn't quite sound right. google translate, while failing miserably on the rest of the paragraph, puts  forth "that his spirit continues to work in us" which i think is correct translation. Maybe native english speaker can have a look at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.99.206.227 (talk) 17:02, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA
It would be nice to have IPA for the English and the German pronunciations. 2.30.96.220 (talk) 23:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Geography
From the article:
 * "Hermann Minkowski was born in Aleksotas, a village in Kaunas Governorate, part of Congress Poland "

As far as I knwo, Aleksotas was not part of Kaunas Governorate and Kaunas Governorate was not situated in Congress Poland. Can anybody check this? --93.209.146.173 (talk) 09:21, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

In regard to my last edit
Actually I think the source is probably reliable. Because the link was to a web site, and it was a not well-written citation, I jumped to the conclusion that it was self-published. However, I stand by the edit because the reference does not support the claim. LaurentianShield (talk) 22:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)