116 years ago today, on January 12, 1909 (December 21, 1908 in the lunar calendar), German mathematician Hermann Minkowski, founder of the four-dimensional theory of space-time, died. Hermann Minkowski (June 22, 1864 - January 12, 1909), German mathematician and Jewish. Minkowski was born in Alexotas (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Russia, in 1864, the youngest of three brothers. His father was a successful Jewish businessperson. Due to the persecution of Jews by the Russian government at that time, in 1872, my father and his family moved to Konigsberg (now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad) in Prussia, just across the river from the Hilbert family who later became a famous mathematician. Minkowski's eldest brother inherited his father's business and became an excellent businessperson. The second brother was Oscar Minkowski, a famous medical scientist who discovered the connection between insulin and diabetes and was known as the "father of insulin". Later, Rudolf Minkowski, Herman Minkowski's nephew, became a famous American astronomer. In 1873, Minkowski entered the Elstat Preparatory School and completed his eight-year education in just five and a half years. After graduating, Minkowski first entered the local university, then transferred to the University of Berlin, and soon returned to the University of Königsberg. During the university, he studied mathematicians such as Heimholtz, Kronecker, Werstras, and Kirchhoff. At the University of Königsberg, Minkowski and Silbert met again and became close friends. In 1882, at the age of 18, Minkowski and the famous British mathematician Henry Smith jointly won a prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences, which caused a sensation. Minkowski received his doctorate at the University of Königsberg in 1885. After a short period of military service, in 1886 he became a lecturer at the University of Bonn. In 1891 Minkowski was promoted to associate professor and in 1894 returned to the University of Königsberg to teach. In 1895, he succeeded Hilbert as a professor at the University of Königsberg. The following year, Minkowski transferred to the Federal University of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. During this period, Einstein in his youth studied at the Federal University of Technology and became a student of Minkowski. In 1897 Minkowski married Auguste Adler, the daughter of a tannery director near Königsberg, and had two daughters. In 1902, Minkowski was invited by Klein to transfer to the University of Göttingen as a professor of mathematics. In a lecture in Cologne, Germany, in 1908, Minkowski proposed the concept of four-dimensional space-time. On January 10, 1909, Minkowski suffered from acute appendicitis, and the rescue was ineffective. He died on January 12 at the age of 45. After Minkowski's death, his friend Hilbert sorted out his posthumous works and published the Complete Works of Minkowski (GesammelteAbhandlungenvonHermannMinkowski) in 1911. Minkowski's main areas of work were in number theory, algebra, and mathematical physics. In the field of number theory, he carried out important research on quadratic forms. In the grand prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences in 1881, Minkowski studied the works of Gauss, Dirichlet, and others, and in-depth studied the n-yuan quadratic form, establishing a complete theoretical system. After that, Minkowski continued his research and established a reduction theory of the positive definite quadratic form of real coefficients in 1905, which was called the "Minkowski reduction theory". In mathematical physics, while serving at the University of Bonn, Minkowski assisted the famous physicist Hertz in studying the theory of electromagnetic waves. After 1905, Minkowski devoted almost all his energy to electrodynamics. In 1907, Minkowski realized that Lorentz and Einstein's work could be described in non-Euclidean space, combining time and space that were previously considered independent into a four-dimensional space-time structure, namely Minkowski space-time. Minkowski space-time provided the framework for the establishment of general relativity. In honor of the mathematician, asteroid 12493 was named after him "Minkowski". Comment: The founder of the theory of four-dimensional space-time was once a teacher of the famous physicist Einstein. Herman Minkowski showed great talent in mathematics as a teenager and was called a prodigy. The three Minkowski brothers were very famous in Königsberg at that time.