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Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro

12 January 1853
Born
Lugo di Romagna

6 August 1925 (aged 72)

Died
Bologna

Nationality Italian
Alma mater Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Tensor calculus
Known for
Ricci calculus
Scientific career
Fields Mathematics
Ulisse Dini
Doctoral advisor
Enrico Betti
Doctoral students Tullio Levi-Civita

Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro (Italian: [ɡreˈɡɔːrjo ˈrittʃi kurˈbastro]; 12 January 1853 –

6 August 1925) was an Italian mathematician born in Lugo di Romagna.[1] He is most famous
as the inventor of tensor calculus, but also published important works in other fields.

With his former student Tullio Levi-Civita, he wrote his most famous single publication,[2] a
pioneering work on the calculus of tensors, signing it as Gregorio Ricci. This appears to be the
only time that Ricci-Curbastro used the shortened form of his name in a publication, and
continues to cause confusion.
Ricci-Curbastro also published important works in other fields, including a book on higher
algebra and infinitesimal analysis,[3] and papers on the theory of real numbers, an area in
which he extended the research begun by Richard Dedekind.[4]

Biography[edit]
Youth[edit]
Completing privately his high school studies at only sixteen years of age he enrolled on the
course of philosophy-mathematics at Rome University (1869). The following year the Papal
State fell and so Gregorio was called by his father to the city of his birth, Lugo. Subsequently
he attended courses at Bologna, but after only one year he enrolled at the Scuola Normale
Superiore di Pisa.

In 1875, he graduated in Pisa in Physical Sciences and mathematics with a thesis on

differential equations, entitled “On Fuches’s Research Concerning Linear Differential
Equations”. During his various travels he was a student of mathematicians of the calibre of
Enrico Betti, Eugenio Beltrami, Ulisse Dini and Felix Klein.

Studies on absolute differential calculus[edit]

In 1877 Ricci-Curbastro obtained a scholarship at the Technische Hochschule of Munich,
Bavaria, and he later worked as an assistant of Ulisse Dini, his teacher.

In 1880 he became a lecturer of mathematics at the University of Padua where he dealt with
Riemannian geometry and differential quadratic forms.

He formed a research group in which Tullio Levi-Civita worked, with whom he wrote the
fundamental treatise on absolute differential calculus (also known as Ricci calculus) with
coordinates or tensor calculus on Riemannian manifold, which then became the lingua franca
of the subsequent theory of Albert Einstein's general relativity. In fact absolute differential
calculus had a crucial role in developing the theory, as is shown in a letter written by Albert
Einstein to Ricci-Curbastro's nephew. In this context Ricci-Curbastro identified the so-called
Ricci tensor which would have a crucial role within that theory.

Influences[edit]

The advent of tensor calculus in dynamics goes back to Lagrange, who originated the general
treatment of a dynamical system, and to Riemann, who was the first to think about geometry
in an arbitrary number of dimensions. He was also influenced by the works of Christoffel and
of Lipschitz on the quadratic forms. In fact, it was essentially Christoffel’s idea of covariant
differentiation[5] that allowed Ricci-Curbastro to make the greatest progress.[6]

Recognition[edit]
Ricci-Curbastro received many honours for his contributions.

He is honoured by mentions in various Academies amongst which are:

The Veneto Institute of Science - Istituto veneto di scienze - letters and articles (from
1892), of which he was then president from 1916 to 1919.
The Lincei Academy - Accademia dei Lincei - of which he was a member from 1899.
The Academy of Padua - Accademia di Padova - from 1905.
 The Science Academy of Turin - Accademia delle Scienze di Torino - from 1918.
The Galileian Academy of Science - Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti -
letters and articles, of which he was then president from 1920 to 1922.
The Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna - Reale Accademia di Bologna - from
1922.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences - Accademia Pontificia delle Scienze - from 1925.

He participated actively in political life, both in his native town and in Padua, and contributed
with his projects to the Ravenna-area land drainage and the Lugo aqueduct.

An asteroid, 13642 Ricci, is named after him.

Publications[edit]
Ricci-Curbastro, Gregorio (1898), Lezioni sulla teoria delle superficie (in Italian),
Verona: Drucker[7]

See also[edit]
Ricci calculus
Ricci curvature
Ricci flow

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Levi-Civita, Tullio (1926), "Commemorazione del socio nazionale prof. Gregorio Ricci-
Curbastro" [Commemoration of national member Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro read by
member T. Levi-Civita at the meeting of 3 January 1926], Mem. Accad. Lincei (in
Italian), 1 (8): 555–564
2. ^ Ricci, Gregorio; Levi-Civita, Tullio (March 1900). "Méthodes de calcul différentiel
absolu et leurs applications" [Methods of the absolute differential calculus and their
applications]. Mathematische Annalen (in French). Springer. 54 (1–2): 125–201.
doi:10.1007/BF01454201.
3. ^ Ricci-Curbastro, Gregorio (1918), Lezioni di Analisi algebrica ed infinitesimale (1926
ed.), Padova: Tip. Universitaria
4. ^ Ricci-Curbastro, Gregorio (1897), "Della teoria dei numeri reali secondo il concetto di
Dedekind", Gior. di Matem., 35: 22–74
5. ^ Christoffel, E.B. (1869), "Ueber die Transformation der homogenen
Differentialausdrücke zweiten Grades", Journal für die reine und angewandte
Mathematik, B. 70: 46–70
6. ^ Ricci-Curbastro, Gregorio (1887), "Sulla derivazione covariante ad una forma
quadratica differenziale" [On the covariant differentiation with respect to a quadratic
differential form], Rend. Acc. Lincei (in Italian), 3 (4): 15–18
7. ^ James, George Oscar (1899). "Review: Lezioni sulla Teoria delle Superficie, by
Gregorio Ricci" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 7 (8): 359–360. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-
1901-00816-6.

References[edit]
Tonolo, Angelo (1954), "Commemorazione di Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro nel primo
centenario della nascita" (PDF), Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico della Università
di Padova (in Italian), 23: 1–24
 Goodstein, Judith R. (2018). Einstein’s Italian mathematicians : Ricci, Levi-Civita, and
the birth of general relativity. American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-1470428464.

External links[edit]
Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro", MacTutor
History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.