Ricci calculus

Noun

Ricci calculus

1. A formal system in which index notation is used to define tensors and tensor fields and the rules for their manipulation; the theory of tensor calculus as developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, which formed the foundation of the modern theory.
   • 1945 [McGraw-Hill, 2nd Edition], E. T. Bell, The Development of Mathematics, Dover, 1992, page 357,
     The method of calculation is the absolute differential calculus, or tensor analysis, of M. M. G. Ricci (1853–1925, Italian), which was noted earlier in connection with the general progress of recent...
   • This structure, we suggest, will show more clearly when examined in the language of geometry rather than in the language of differential equations, more readily in Regge calculus than in Ricci calculus, and more directly from a geometry idealized to be blockwise flat than from functions idealized...1986, Warner Allen Miller, “Geometric Computation: Null-Strut Geometrodynamics and the Inchworm Algorithm”, in Joan M. Centrella, editor, Dynamical Spacetimes and Numerical Relativity, Cambridge...

   Synonyms:

   absolute differential calculus, tensor analysis, tensor calculus