Hermann Minkowski, Lithuanian-German mathematician and academic (b. 1864)
Hermann Minkowski (; German: [mɪŋˈkɔfski]; 22 June 1864 – 12 January 1909) was a German mathematician and professor at Königsberg, Zürich and Göttingen. In different sources Minkowski's nationality is variously given as German, Polish, or Lithuanian-German, or Russian. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.
Minkowski is perhaps best known for his work in relativity, in which he showed in 1907 that his former student Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) could be understood geometrically as a theory of four-dimensional space–time, since known as the "Minkowski spacetime".