So you know how sometimes you’ll do something as a quick little slightly snarky joke and then it haunts the rest of your life? So I mentioned the Ricci Tensor as just a thing, and then Elke Stangl asked me to write an essay about it. And then another friend, who makes YouTube videos about non-Euclidean geometry, mentioned he wished he understood the Ricci Tensor better since he needed a good way to explain what it represents and why it’s a thing worth knowing and he hadn’t found the way yet. And what does my essay feature? Except for the part about having a clear explanation for what it represents and why it’s a thing worth knowing. I tried, yes, but I felt shaky on the physical significance of the thing. And so does everyone else I can find who’s written any kind of pop mathematics, or pop physics, about the thing. So if you’ve found a good lay explanation for why we want to know about Ricci tensors please let me know. My essay could use a follow-up.
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