["Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView. ", "\nI present and discuss two drafts of remarks prepared by the mathematician Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909). They were composed in December 1907 while preparing his paper on the “Basic Equations of Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies” for publication in the Proceedings of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. I discuss the biographical and institutional context as well as the scientific background to highlight a document which illuminates the perception of an emerging academic discipline of mathematical physics.\n"]