Abstract
At the very beginning of this book vectors and scalars were denned as ‘physical quantities’. But what does this mean mathematically? In this chapter a precise mathematical statement is developed, using the idea that the physical quantity exists independently of any coordinate system that may be used. This new mathematical definition of vectors and scalars is generalised to define a wider class of objects known as tensors. Throughout this chapter attention is restricted to Cartesian coordinate systems.
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© 1998 Springer-Verlag London
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Matthews, P.C. (1998). Cartesian Tensors. In: Vector Calculus. Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0597-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0597-8_7
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76180-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0597-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive