Einstein summation notation (was: question of style)
Erik Max Francis
max at alcyone.com
Thu Jul 16 21:18:56 EDT 2009
Albert van der Horst wrote:
> Einstein introduced the summation convention for indices that
> are used twice. Leaving out summation signs is absolutely hideous,
> but it has saved generations of physicists of loosing track (and
> their minds.)
There is a joke among mathematicians that if Einstein hadn't been
remembered for a couple of other fairly contributions things in physics
:-), he would have been remembered in mathematics for that convention,
since it has saved everyone -- mathematicians included -- a lot of time
and anguish. When using tensor calculus, there's even very easy ways to
verify you have a valid tensor equation using it.
--
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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