Abstract
THE vector analysis of Gibbs and Heaviside and the more general tensor analysis of Ricci are now recognized as standard tools in mechanics, hydro-dynamics and electrodynamics. Their use not only materially simplifies and condenses the exposition, but also makes mathematical concepts more tangible and easy to grasp. Moreover, tensor analysis provides a simple automatic method for constructing invariants. Since a tensor equation has precisely the same form in all co-ordinate systems, the desirability of stating physical laws or geometrical properties in tensor form is manifest. The perfect adaptability of the tensor calculus to the theory of relativity was responsible for its original renown. It has since won a firm place in mathematical physics and engineering technology. Thus Sir Edmund Whittaker rates the tensor calculus as one of the three principal mathematical advances in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Vector and Tensor Analysis
By Prof. Louis Brand. Pp. xvi + 439. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1947.) 33s. net.
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MILNE-THOMSON, L. Vector and Tensor Analysis. Nature 164, 336 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164336a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164336a0