Ricci calculus

In mathematics, Ricci calculus constitutes the rules of index notation and manipulation for tensors and tensor fields. It is also the modern name for what used to be called the absolute differential calculus (the foundation of tensor calculus), developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro in 1887–96, and subsequently popularized in a paper written with his pupil Tullio Levi-Civita in 1900. Jan Arnoldus Schouten developed the modern notation and formalism for this mathematical framework, and made contributions to the theory, during its applications to general relativity and differential geometry in the early twentieth century.