ATD p. 324

[Anville Azote]

Does anybody better at untangling chronologies than I have a date for
when the conversation between Kit Traverse and Heino Vanderjuice on
pp. 324--25 occurs?

"Well, Mr. Traverse, if you ever considered becoming that 'something
else,' Germany would seem the logical place for you.  Grassmann's
Ausdehnungslehre can be extended to any number of spatial dimensions
you like.  Dr. Hilbert in Goettingen is developing his 'Spectral
Theory,' which requires a vector space of infinite dimensions.  His
co-adjutor Minkowski thinks that dimensions will eventually all just
fade away into a Kontinuum of space and time.  Minkowski and Hilbert,
in fact, will be holding a joint seminar at Goettingen next year in
the electrodynamics of moving bodies, not to mention Hilbert's recent
work on Eigenheit theory---vectors right in the heart and soul of it
all, mightn't it be, as you lads say, 'just the ticket'?"

The reference to the seminar "next year" would place this conversation
in 1904, seven years earlier than any reference I've seen for
Minkowski's famous statement about space and time sinking into mere
shadows and only a union of the two "preserving an independent
reality".  (I quoted this in connection with Paul Di Filippo's
delightful Pynchon-as-protagonist story a few weeks ago; were I a true
sensitive, I would already be orbiting through the apogee of a true
paranoia.)

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Minkowski.html

"Eigenheit" translates to "peculiarity", AFAIK.  Of course, "eigen-"
is a commonly used prefix in mathematics and physics, typically
interpreted as "own" or "characteristic".

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-06Spring-2005/VideoLectures/index.htm

-A. A.