I read a qoute that Einstein didn't like Minkowski's input to relativity and thought he made it less intelligible. I have the feeling that many agree with Einstein, as the mixup of space and time is completely uncalled for and not needed for the theory to hold and advance. The only advantage of Minkowski addition seem to encourage a huge advance in math sections related to the subject which is good. I feel that both SR and GR can be presented without this mix-up of time and space.
Maybe this stackexchange discussion has some answers, but please treat it with healthy scepticism as everything on the internet:
https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/9975/what-was-the-relationship-between-einstein-and-minkowski
António José Rodrigues Rebelo
OK... but try applying your local earthquake logic to planet Vulcan... 12 lightyears away, in a completely different gravitational environment, under distinct relativistic conditions... and all you’ve got to work with are a few lousy photons drifting into your telescope.Good luck reverse-engineering time and space from that. Minkowski sends his regards.
So yes, space and time are obviously distinct... right up until you try to timestamp an event that happened 12 years ago (because it is 12 lightyears away), in a curved spacetime, with only a photon or two as witnesses.
To be absolutely clear: Cosmologists do not have seismographs attached to every possible rock in the galaxy. That’s a fairly significant limitation and shouldn’t be dismissed just because things feel tidier here on Earth. Just like one shouldn’t deny the existence of struggle simply because it doesn’t happen in their neighborhood.
Minkowski clearly recognized that, once photons become the carriers of information, space can no longer be cleanly or easily separated from time. The two are fundamentally interwoven within the geometry of spacetime itself ...not with the mathematics available back then, but conceptually clear nonetheless. Not without solutions from Segmented Spacetime theory.
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