THE ABSOLUTE DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS (Calculus of Tensors) By TULLIO LEVI-CIVITA Dr. ENRICO PERSICO BLACKIE & SON LIMITED LONDON AND GLASGOWPrinted in Great Britain by PREFACE The present volume contains « complete translation, made in consequence of a suggestion hy my eminent fiend, Profesor B. T. Whittaker, PXRS, of the Talian text of my: Lesion’ di nll difeensateasalio. Two new chapters have been aed, thick ate intended to exhibit the fundamental principles of Binstein's General Thoory of Relativity (including, of course, ts 4 limiting cate, the socalled Spevial or Restreted Theory) ‘5 an application of the Absolute Caleulus. T have alreudy had occasion to remark in the Proface to the alian edition that we possess various systematic and wll- ‘written expositions of Relativity by celebrated thors. ‘The short treatment which is offered in the two new chapters of the present work presents some distinctive features which it may’ be well to point ont explicitly Ts the fst place, in order not to increase the size of the book unduly, T have thought i expedient to confine myself to tracing the relativistic evolution of Mechanics (propery so called) and of Geometrical Optics, and to developing ite most important consequences. In ths treatment the whole of Hleetromagnetism is sacrificed. ‘The stein ie certainly regrettable, see Hlecro ‘magnetisin was historically elated in the most intimate way to Einstein's conception, having served indeed as the support and moe for Restricted Relativity. Furthermore, Electromagnetism, in common with every other physical phenomenon, now comes within the aubit of General Relativity. Much as the omission ‘of Blectomagnetiom is to bo ropretted, it has the advantage Df reducing the programme to subjects bulonging to the pure [Newtonian tradition (or to its developments and it allows ns fo take a clearer and more exact view of the transition from the ‘asseal seheme of Mechanics to the relativistic one.vi PREFACE, or this reason I have followed the method-—hich T have ‘adopted sometimes in lectures or articles on special subjects fof taking the clacal late as the starting point and then of trying to find inductively what modieations—negigible in onnary eircumstanccsshould be introducad in onder to take tecount of Einstein's ideas; and in the fint place, naturally, to take account of hin Principle of Relativity, that is to say, the invariant behaviour of these Tas under all transformations of spice and time, an auxiliary fourdlimensional a? being duly tmployed, This method has seemed to me to be preferable to the procedure of enunciating’ the postulates of elatvistic ‘Mechanics in abstract tensorial form, which is x0 comprehensive in physical content as to be almost inaccesible to ordinary ineuition, except with ample comment and illustration, ‘further characteristic of our exposition is that we make extensive use not only of geometrical representation but also fof the differential propertion pertaining to the space-time con- tinuuns; attention ix drawn alto to the spocial importance of the Finseinian statics, the trtment being rigorous in some ‘cases, while i others which involve fields variable withthe time itis approsimate. Tn closing this introduction to Chapters XT and XII would sul that they were prepared still n collaboration with Professor Persco, at the suggestion of Me. FFP. Bisacre, MA. Tn connexion with the whole of the English edition, T must sly thank the translator, Mis Marjorie Long, formerly Scholar of Girton College, who with double competence, seientiie ‘nd linguistic, has known how to combine scrupulous respect for the text with its effective adaptation to the spin of the [nglish language. owe hearty thanks also to Dr. John Dougal, who, while revising the profs, hae chockedl the analysis throughout, detected Some oversights, and made umoy wseful suggestions for improve tment. T wish finally to thank my Exch publihers, who have hot only aecaed to, but almost always anticipated, my wishes in regard to symbols and the typography of the book 7. LEVECIVITA, on, ae, 038 PREFACE TO THE FIRST (ITALIAN) EDITION Tiiomann's general metric and a formula of Christofel eon stitute the premises of the absolute differential calealue, Ite evelopment as systematic branch of mathematics was a later ‘proces, the credit for which ia due to Ries, who during the ten ears 1881-1806 elaborated the theory and worked out the ‘logant and comprehensive notation which enables it to be easily adapted to a wide variety of questions of analysis, geometry, and physics, Tice himself, in an article published in Volume XVT of the Ballin des Seinces Mathénatques (1892), gave a fist account ‘of his methods, and applied thens to some problems in differential feometry and mathematial physics, Later on other interesting applications, made by himself or his students (to whieh group T had the privilege of belonging), suggested the desirability of preparing & general account of the whole subject, including amethors, results, and bibliography. ‘This was the origin ofthe ‘memoir " Méthodes de ealeul dilfrentielabsolu et leurs applic cations”, which was compiled by Professor Ricei and myself in collaborstion, on the courteous invitation of Klein, and appeased in Volume 51 of Math, Ann. (1901), Theres a chapter on the foundations ofthe absolute ealelus, ‘with special reference to the transformation of the equations of ynamics, in Wright's Tract, Inouriants of Quadratic Digerental Forms (Cambridge University Pres, 1908); apart from this, while special researches bnsest on the use of thie method were continued after 1901 by a limited number of mathematicians, yet general attention was not again directed to it until the grat renaissance of natural philosophy, due to Binstein, whieh found in the absolute differential caleulus the necesary instrument