differential form

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun

A completely antisymmetric tensor (of order p) that is defined on a Riemannian manifold; an expression, derived by applying a formalism to said tensor, that represents an integrand over the manifold.

Word forms

differential form differential forms

Etymology

From early 20th century. The concept was clarified chiefly by French mathematician Élie Cartan (1869–1951). In his fundamental paper, 1899, Sur certaines expressions différentielles et le problème de Pfaff, Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure (3), tome 16, Cartan used the (French) term expression différentielle, and in his 1922, Leçons sur les invariants intégraux, Hermann, he used the terms exterior differential form and exterior derivative.

Related words

form harmonic form linear form multilinear form exterior algebra exterior derivative exterior product Riemannian manifold

Derived words

differential p-form

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

Back to search All on D Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary