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Einstein’s Italian Mathematicians: Ricci, Levi-Civita, and the Birth of General Relativity

Judith R. Goodstein California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Available Formats:
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4704-2846-4
Product Code: MBK/113
211 pp
List Price: $35.00 MAA Member Price:$31.50
AMS Member Price: $28.00 Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4704-4859-2 Product Code: MBK/113.E 211 pp List Price:$35.00
MAA Member Price: $31.50 AMS Member Price:$28.00
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List Price: $52.50 MAA Member Price:$47.25
AMS Member Price: $42.00 Click above image for expanded view Einstein’s Italian Mathematicians: Ricci, Levi-Civita, and the Birth of General Relativity Judith R. Goodstein California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA Available Formats:  Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4704-2846-4 Product Code: MBK/113 211 pp  List Price:$35.00 MAA Member Price: $31.50 AMS Member Price:$28.00
 Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4704-4859-2 Product Code: MBK/113.E 211 pp
 List Price: $35.00 MAA Member Price:$31.50 AMS Member Price: $28.00 Bundle Print and Electronic Formats and Save! This product is available for purchase as a bundle. Purchasing as a bundle enables you to save on the electronic version. List Price:$52.50
MAA Member Price: $47.25 AMS Member Price:$42.00
• Book Details

2018
MSC: Primary 01; 83;

In 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.

Mathematicians, physicists, and others interested in the history of science.

• Chapters
• The Ricci of Lugo
• The making of a mathematician
• Munich
• 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

• Reviews

• The author is an outstanding specialist for the history of the absolute differential calculus and the main propagators Gregorio Ricci and Tullio Levi-Civita. Though it is not mentioned in this book, she looks back on a long publication list...This book is a special one and should be well recognized...The book can be highly recommended to all historians who are interested in the history of general relativity and its origin.

Karin Reich, Zentralblatt MATH
• In the hands of a gifted author, a history can read like a novel.

J. Johnson, CHOICE
• A 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, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy
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2018
MSC: Primary 01; 83;

In 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.

Mathematicians, physicists, and others interested in the history of science.

• Chapters
• The Ricci of Lugo
• The making of a mathematician
• Munich
• 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
• The author is an outstanding specialist for the history of the absolute differential calculus and the main propagators Gregorio Ricci and Tullio Levi-Civita. Though it is not mentioned in this book, she looks back on a long publication list...This book is a special one and should be well recognized...The book can be highly recommended to all historians who are interested in the history of general relativity and its origin.

Karin Reich, Zentralblatt MATH
• In the hands of a gifted author, a history can read like a novel.

J. Johnson, CHOICE
• A 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, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy
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