Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Prologue ix
4. (1) The Liberation of Algebra 1
5. (2) The Arrival of Calculus 18
6. (3) Ideas for Vectors 42
7. (4) Understanding Space (and Storage) 69
8. (5) A Surprising New Player and a Very Slow Reception 101
9. (6) Tait and Maxwell: Hatching the Electromagnetic Vector Field 118
10. (7) The Slow Journey from Quaternions to Vectors 146
11. (8) Vector Analysis at La st—and a “War” over Quaternions 168
12. (9) From Space to Space-Time A New Twist for Vectors 188
13. (10) Curving Spaces and Invariant Distances On the Way to Tensors 217
14. (11) Inventing Tensors—and Why They Matter 240
15. (12) Everything Comes Together Tensors and the General Theory of Relativity 274
16. (13) What Happened Next 304
17. Timeline 327
18. Acknowledgments 339
19. Notes 343
20. Index 405