tensor

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A mathematical object that describes linear relations on scalars, vectors, matrices and other algebraic objects, and is represented as a multidimensional array.

   The tensor #92;alpha#95;#123;ij#125; should really be called a “tensor of second rank,” because it has two indexes. A vector—with one index—is a tensor of the first rank, and a scalar—with no index—is a tensor of zero rank.

2. 2
   noun

   any of several muscles that cause an attached structure to become tense or firm

3. 3
   noun

   a generalization of the concept of a vector

4. 4
   noun

   A muscle that tightens or stretches a part, or renders it tense.

Borrowed from New Latin tensor (“that which stretches”), equivalent to tense + -or. Anatomical sense from 1704. Introduced in the 1840s by William Rowan Hamilton as an algebraic quantity unrelated to the modern notion of tensor. The contemporary mathematical meaning was introduced (as German Tensor) by Woldemar Voigt (1898) and adopted in English from 1915 (in the context of general relativity), obscuring the earlier Hamiltonian sense. The mathematical object is so named because an early application of tensors was the study of materials stretching under tension. (See, for example, Cauchy stres...

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