What is missing from Minkowski's "Raum und Zeit" lecture

TL;DR

This paper critically examines Minkowski's 'Raum und Zeit' lecture, highlighting overlooked aspects and misunderstandings, especially regarding Poincaré's contributions and Minkowski's understanding of 'time' in spacetime.

Contribution

It offers a negative analysis of Minkowski's lecture, emphasizing missing references to Poincaré and questioning Minkowski's grasp of the physical meaning of time.

Findings

Minkowski did not cite Poincaré's contributions to four-dimensional geometry.

Questions about Minkowski's understanding of the physical and existential meaning of time.

The analysis clarifies the revolutionary nature of Minkowski's approach.

Abstract

This contribution tries to highlight the importance of Minkowski's ``Raum und Zeit'' lecture in a ``negative'' way, where {\it negative} is taken in the photographic sense of reversing lights and shades. Indeed, we focus on the ``shades'' of Minkowski's text, i.e. what is missing, or misunderstood. In particular, we focus on two issues: (i) why are Poincar\'e's pioneering contributions to four-dimensional geometry not quoted by Minkowski (while he abundantly quoted them a few months before the Cologne lecture)?, and (ii) did Minkowski fully grasp the physical (and existential) meaning of ``time'' within spacetime? We think that this ``negative'' approach (and the contrast between Poincar\'e's and Minkowski's attitudes towards physics) allows one to better grasp the boldness of the {\it revolutionary} step taken by Minkowski in his Cologne lecture.