About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherAmerican Mathematical Society

ISBN-101470428466

ISBN-139781470428464

eBay Product ID (ePID)12038358934

Product Key Features

Number of Pages228 Pages

Publication NameEinstein's Italian Mathematicians : Ricci, Levi-Civita, and the Birth of General Relativity

LanguageEnglish

SubjectCultural Heritage, Calculus, Physics / Relativity, Science & Technology

Publication Year2018

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaMathematics, Science, Biography & Autobiography

AuthorJudith R. Goodstein

SeriesMonograph Bks.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight15.9 Oz

Item Length10 in

Item Width7 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2018-000022

ReviewsA wonderfully written chronicle of the lives of two great mathematicians and how their work shaped Einstein's masterpiece as well as ushering in new fields of mathematics. The book is also an intriguing and insightful portrait of Italy during the period from Italian independence in 1870 until the onset of World War II."- Gino Segre, Physics Department, University of Pennsylvania "Galileo said that mathematics is the language of nature. Einstein might have found himself mute when it came to describing gravity if it weren't for the mathematics of covariant derivatives developed by Galileo's countrymen Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita. Judy Goodstein tells their stories and their connection to Einstein with clarity and grace in a most readable book."- Barry Simon, California Institute of Technology "The theory of general relativity would never have seen the light without the absolute differential calculus invented by the Italian mathematicians Gregorio Ricci Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita. This wonderful book carefully examines the academic, cultural, political, and historical framework in Italy of that time, and explores the deep relation - always fed with sincere respect, admiration, and affection - between these two great mathematicians at the turn of the twentieth century."- Tullio Ceccherini-Silberstein, Universita del Sannio, Benevento, Italy

Dewey Edition23

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal510.92/245

Table Of ContentThe Ricci of Lugo The making of a mathematician Munich Padua Math and marriage A promotion that wasn't The absolute differential calculus The alter ego Intermezzo The indispensable mathematical tool "Write to me next time in Italian" Parallel displacements From Ricci's absolute differential calculus to Einstein's theorem for general relativity T. Levi-Civita, "Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro" Obituary of Tullio Levi-Civita Selected references Notes Index

SynopsisIn the first decade of the twentieth century as Albert Einstein began formulating a revolutionary theory of gravity, the Italian mathematician Gregorio Ricci was entering the later stages of what appeared to be a productive if not particularly memorable career, devoted largely to what his colleagues regarded as the dogged development of a mathematical language he called the absolute differential calculus. In 1912, the work of these two dedicated scientists would intersect-and physics and mathematics would never be the same. Einstein's Italian Mathematicians chronicles the lives and intellectual contributions of Ricci and his brilliant student Tullio Levi-Civita, including letters, interviews, memoranda, and other personal and professional papers, to tell the remarkable, little-known story of how two Italian academicians, of widely divergent backgrounds and temperaments, came to provide the indispensable mathematical foundation-today known as the tensor calculus-for general relativity., Chronicles the lives and intellectual contributions of Gregorio Ricci and his brilliant student Tullio Levi-Civita, including letters, interviews, memoranda, and other personal and professional papers, to tell the remarkable story of how two Italian academics came to provide the indispensable mathematical foundation for general relativity.

LC Classification NumberQA28.G66 2018