Lesson 1: The equivalence principle

and tensor analysis

Notes from Prof. Susskind video lectures publicly available

on YouTube

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 Introduction

General relativity is the fourth volume in the collection

The Theoretical Minimum. The first three volumes were
devoted respectively to classical mechanics, quantum me-
chanics, and special relativity and classical field theory. The
first volume laid out the lagrangian and hamiltonian de-
scription of physical phenomena, and the principle of least
action which is one of the fundamental principles underly-
ing all of physics (see volume 3, chapter 7 on fundamental
principles and gauge invariance). They were used in the
first three volumes and will continue in the present and
subsequent ones
Physics uses extensively mathematics as its toolbox to
construct formal, quantifiable, workable theories of natural
phenomena. The main tools we used so far are trigonome-
try, vector spaces, and calculus, that is, differentiation and
integration. They have been explained in volume 1 as well
as in brief refresher sections in the other volumes.
We assume that the reader is familiar with these math-
ematical tools and with the physical ideas presented in vol-
umes 1 and 3. The present volume 4, like its predecessors,
except volume 2, belongs to classical physics in the sense
that no quantum incertainty is involved.

We also began to make light use of tensors in special rel-

ativity and classical field theory. Now in general relativity
we are going to use them extensively. We shall study them
in detail. As the reader remembers, they generalize vectors.
Just like vectors have different representations, with dif-
ferent sets of numbers depending on the basis used to chart
the vector space they form, this will be true of tensors as
well. The same tensor will have different components in
different coordinate systems. And the rules to go from one

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set of components to another will play a fundamental role.

Tensors were invented by Ricci-Curbastro and Levi-Civita1

to develop work of Gauss2 on curvature of surfaces, and
Riemann3 on non Euclidean geometry. Einstein4 made ex-
tensive use of tensors to build his theory of general relativ-
ity. He also made important contributions to their usage:
the standard notation for indices and the Einstein summa-
tion convention.

In Savants et écrivains, 1910, Poincaré5 writes that "in

mathematical sciences, a good notation has the same philo-
sophical importance as a good classification in natural sci-
ences." In this book we will take care to always use the
clearest and lightest notation possible.

The equivalence principle

Einstein’s revolutionary papers of 1905 on special relativity

deeply clarified and extended ideas that several other physi-
cists and mathematicians, Lorentz6 , Poincaré and others,
1
Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro (1853-1925) and his students Tullio
Levi-Civita (1873-1941) are Italian mathematicians. Their most im-
portant joint paper is "Méthodes de calcul différentiel absolu et leurs
applications", in Mathematische Annalen 54 (1901), pp 125-201. They
did not use the word tensor, which was introduced by other people.
2
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), German mathematician.
3
Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866), German mathematician.
4
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German, Swiss and finally Ameri-
can physicist.
5
Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), French mathematician.
6
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928), Dutch physicist.

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had been working on for a few years. Einstein investigated
the consequences of the fact that the laws of physics, in
particular the behavior of light, are the same in different
inertial reference frames. He deduced from that a new ex-
planation of the Lorentz transformations, of the relativity
of time, of the equivalence of mass and energy, etc.

After 1905, Einstein began to think about extending the

principle of relativity to any kind of reference frames, frames
that may be in acceleration with respect to one another,
not just inertial ones. Remember: an inertial frame is one
where Newton’s laws, relating forces and motions, have sim-
ple expressions. Or, if you prefer a more vivid image, and
you know how to juggle, it is a frame of reference in which
you can juggle with no problem – for instance in a railway
car moving uniformly, without jerks or accelerations of any
sort.
After ten years of efforts to build a theory extending the
principle of relativity to frames with acceleration and taking
into account gravitation in a novel way, Einstein published
his work in November 1915. Unlike special relativity which
topped off the work of many, general relativity is essentially
the work of one man.

We shall start our study of general relativity pretty much

where Einstein started.
It was a pattern in Einstein’s thinking to start with
a really simple elementary fact, that almost a child could
understand, and deduce these incredibly far-reaching conse-
quences. We think that it is also the best way to teach it, to
start with the simplest things and deduce the consequences.

So we shall begin with the equivalence principle. What is

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the equivalence principle? It is the principle that says that
gravity is in some sense the same thing as acceleration.
We shall explain precisely what is meant by that, and
give examples of how Einstein used it. From there, we shall
ask ourselves what kind of mathematical structure does a
theory ought to have in order that the equivalence principle
be true? What are the kinds of mathematics we must use
to describe it?
Most readers have probably heard that general relativ-
ity is a theory not only about gravity, but also about geom-
etry. So it is interesting to start at the beginning and ask
what is it that led Einstein to say that gravity has some-
thing to do with geometry.

What does that mean to say that "gravity equals acceler-

ation"? We will go through a very elementary derivation
of what that means. It is not that this derivation is im-
portant, but it is worth formalizing. Formalizing means
making equations that describe the world.
You all know that if you are in an accelerated frame
of reference, an elevator accelerating upward or downward,
you feel an effective gravitational field. Children know that
because they feel it.

What follows may be overkill, but making some mathemat-

ics out of the motion of an elevator is useful to see, in a
very simple example, how physicists transform a natural
phenomenon into mathematics, and then to see what these
mathematics really are and what in turn they can say and
predict about the natural phenomenon.

Let’s imagine the Einstein thought-experiment: somebody

is in an elevator (figure 1). In later textbooks, the elevator

5
got promoted to a rocket ship. But I have never been in a
rocket ship, whereas I have been in an elevator. So I know
what it feels like when it accelerates or decelerates. Let’s
say the elevator is moving upward with a velocity v.

Figure 1: Elevator and two reference frames.

So far the problem is one-dimensional. We are only

interested in the vertical direction. There are two reference
frames: one is stationary with respect to the Earth. It uses
the coordinate z. And the other is fixed with respect to the
elevator. It uses the coordinate z 0 .
A point P anywhere along the vertical axis has two
coordinates: coordinate z in the stationary frame, and co-
ordinate z 0 in the elevator frame. For instance the floor of
the elevator has coordinate z 0 = 0. And its z coordinate is
the distance L, which is obviously a function of time. So
we can write for any point P
z 0 = z − L(t) (1)
We are going to be interested in the following question:
if we know the laws of physics in the frame z, what are they

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in the frame z 0 .

One warning about this lesson: at least in the start we

are going to ignore special relativity. This is tantamount
to saying that we are pretending that the speed of light is
infinite, or that we are talking about motions which are so
slow that the speed of light can be regarded as infinitely
fast
You might wonder: if general relativity is the general-
ization of special relativity, how did Einstein get away with
starting thinking without special relativity? The answer is
that special relativity has to do with very high velocities,
while gravity has to do with heavy masses. There is a range
of situations where gravity is important but high velocities
are not. So Einstein started out thinking about gravity for
slow velocities, and then combined it with special relativity
to think about the combination of fast velocities and grav-
ity. And that became the general theory.

Let’s see what we know for slow velocities. And let’s begin
with inertial reference frames. Suppose that z 0 and z are
both inertial reference frames. That means, among other
things, they are related by uniform velocity. In other words

L(t) = vt (2)

We have chosen the coordinates such that when t = 0,

they lineup. At t = 0, for any point, z and z 0 are equal.
For instance at t = 0 the elevator’s floor has coordinate 0
in both frames. Then the floor is rising and its height z is
equal to vt. So for any point we can write equation (1).
Combined with equation (2), it becomes

z 0 = z − vt (3)

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 Notice that this is a coordinate transformation. For
readers who are familiar with Volume 3 of the collection
The Theoretical Minimum, on special relativity, this natu-
rally raises the question: what about time in the reference
frame of the elevator? If we are going to forget special rel-
ativity, then we can just say t0 and t are the same thing.
We don’t have to think about Lorentz transformations and
their consequences. So the other half of the coordinate
transformation would be t0 = t.
We could also add to the stationary frame a coordinate
x going horizontally, and a coordinate y jutting out of the
page. Correspondingly coordinates x0 and y 0 could be at-
tached to the elevator, see figure 2. The x coordinate will
play a role in a moment with a light beam. As long as the
elevator is not sliding horizontally then x0 and x can be
taken to be equal. Same thing for y 0 and y.

Figure 2: Elevator and two reference frames,

three axes in each case.

For the sake of clarity of the drawing, we offset a bit

the elevator to the right of the z axis. But think of the two

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vertical axes as actually sliding on each other, and at t = 0
the two origins O and O0 as being the same. Once again,
the elevator moves only vertically.

Finally our complete coordinate transformation is

z 0 = z − vt
t0 = t
(4)
x0 = x
y0 = y

It is a coordinate transformation of space-time coordinates.

For any point P in space-time it expresses its coordinates
in the moving reference frame of the elevator as functions of
its coordinates in the stationary frame. It is rather trivial.
Only one coordinate, namely z, is involved in an interesting
way.

Now let us look at a law of physics expressed in the sta-

tionary frame. Let’s take Newton’s law of motion F = ma
applied to an object or a particle in the elevator. The ac-
celeration a is z̈, where z is the vertical coordinate of the
particle. So we can write

F = mz̈ (5)

As we know, z̈ is the second time derivative of z with

respect to time. It is called the vertical acceleration. Of
course F is the vertical component of force. We forget
about any x-component or y-component of force. They are
not interesting in this context. In fact we take them equal
to zero. Whatever force is exerted, it is exerted vertically.

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 What could this force be due to? There could be some
charge in the elevator exerting a force on the charged parti-
cle. Or it could just be a force due to a rope attached to the
ceiling and to the particle, that pulls on it. Any number
of different kinds of forces could be acting on the particle.
And we know that the equation of motion of the particle,
expressed in the original frame of reference, is given by for-
mula (5).

What is the equation of motion expressed in the prime

frame? Well this is very easy. All we have to do is fig-
ure out what the original acceleration is in terms of the
primed acceleration.
What is the primed acceleration? It is the second deriva-
tive with respect to time of z 0 . Using the first equation in
equations (4)
z 0 = z − vt
we get first of all
z˙0 = ż − v
and then
z¨0 = z̈

The accelerations in the two frames of reference are the

same.

All of this should be familiar. But I want to formalize it

to bring out some points. In particular, I want to stress
that we are doing a coordinate transformation. We are
asking how laws of physics change in going from one frame
to another.
So now what can we say about the Newton’s law in the
prime frame of reference? We substitute z¨0 for z̈ in equation

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(5), since they are equal, and we get

F = mz¨0 (6)

What do we find? We find that Newton’s law in the

prime frame is exactly the same as Newton’s law in the un-
prime frame. That is not surprising. The two frames of
reference are moving with uniform velocity relative to each
other. If one of them is an inertial frame, the other is an
inertial frame. Newton taught us that the laws of physics
are the same in all inertial frames. So that is a sort of for-
malization of the argument.

Now let’s turn to an accelerated reference frame.

Accelerated reference frames

Now L(t) is increasing in an accelerated way (see fig 1).

The height of the elevator’s floor is then given by
1
L(t) = gt2 (7)
2
We use the letter g for the acceleration, for obvious rea-
sons. If you don’t know what the obvious reasons are, you
will find out in a minute. We know from Volume 1 of The
Theoretical Minimum, on classical mechanics, or from high
school, that this is a uniform acceleration. Indeed, if we
differentiate L(t) with respect to time, after one differenti-
ation we get
L̇ = gt

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which means that the velocity of the elevator increases lin-
early with time. And after a second differentiation with
respect to time, we get

L̈ = g

which means that the acceleration of the elevator is con-

stant. The elevator is uniformly accelerated upward. And
the equations connecting the primed and unprimed coordi-
nates are different. For the vertical coordinates it is now
1
z 0 = z − gt2 (8)
2
The other equations in (4) don’t change.

t0 = t
x0 = x
y0 = y

These four equations are our new coordinate transfor-

mation to represent the relationship between coordinates
which are accelerated relative to each other.

We will continue to assume that in the z, or unprimed,

coordinate system, the laws of physics are exactly what
Newton taught us. In other words, the stationary reference
frame is inertial. And we have F = mz̈. But the prime
frame is no longer inertial. It is in uniform acceleration
relative to the unprimed frame. Let’s ask what the laws of
physics are now in the prime frame of reference.
We have to do the operation of differentiating twice over
again on equation (8). We know the answer:

z¨0 = z̈ − g (9)

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 The primed acceleration and the unprimed acceleration
differ by an amount g. Now we can write Newton’s equa-
tions in the prime frame of reference. We multiply both
sides of (9) by m, the particle mass, and we replace mz̈ by
F . We get
mz¨0 = F − mg (10)

We arrived at what we wanted. Equation (10) looks like a

Newton equation, that is, mass times acceleration is equal
to some term. That term, F − mg, we call the force in the
prime frame of reference. You notice, as expected, that the
force in the prime frame of reference has an extra term, a
sort of fictitious term which is the mass of the particle times
the acceleration of the elevator, with a minus sign.

What is interesting about the fictitious term −mg, in equa-

tion (10), is that it looks exactly like the force exerted on
the particle by gravity at the surface of the Earth or the
surface of any kind of large massive body. It looks like a
uniform gravitational field. But let me spell out in what
sense it looks like gravity.
The special feature of gravity is that the gravitational
forces are proportional to mass – the same mass which ap-
pears in Newton’s equation of motion. We sometimes say
that the gravitational mass is the same as the inertial mass.
That has a deep implication. If the equation of motion is

F = ma (11)

and the force itself is proportional to mass, then the mass

cancels in equation (11). That is a characteristic of gravi-
tational forces: for a small object moving in a gravitational
force, its motion doesn’t depend on its mass.

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 An example would just be the motion of the Earth
about the Sun. It is independent of the mass of the Earth.
If you know where the Earth is at an instant, and you know
how fast it is moving, then you can predict its trajectory,
without regard for what the mass of Earth is.

So equation (10) is an example of a fictitious force – if you

want to call it that way – mimicking the effect of gravity.
Most people before Einstein considered this largely an ac-
cident. They certainly knew that the effect of acceleration
mimics the effect of gravity, but they didn’t pay much at-
tention to it. It was Einstein who said: look, this is a deep
principle of nature that gravitational forces cannot be dis-
tinguished from the effect of an accelerated reference frame.
If you are in an elevator without windows and you feel
that your body has some weight, you cannot say whether
the elevator, with you inside, is resting on the surface of a
planet, or, far away from any massive body in the universe,
some impish devil is accelerating your elevator. That is the
equivalence principle, that extends the relativity principle
which said you can juggle in the same way at rest or in a
railway car in uniform motion. In a simple example, we
have equated accelerated motion and gravity. We have be-
gun to explain what is meant by "gravity is in some sense
the same thing as acceleration".

We will have to discuss this result a bit – whether we re-

ally believe it totally or it has to be qualified. But before
we do that, let’s draw some pictures of what these various
coordinate transformations look like.

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 Curvilinear coordinate transformations

Let’s first take the case where L(t) is proportional to t.

That is when we have

z 0 = z − vt

In figure 3, every point in space-time has a pair of coor-

dinates z and t in the stationary frame, and also a pair of
coordinates z 0 and t0 in the elevator frame. Of course t0 = t
and we left over the two other spatial coordinates x and y
which don’t change between the stationary frame and the
elevator. We represented the time trajectories of fixed z
with dotted lines, and of fixed z 0 with solid lines.

Figure 3: Linear coordinates transformation.

That is called a linear coordinates transformation be-

tween the two frames of reference. Straight lines go to
straight lines, not surprisingly since Newton tells us that
free particles move in straight lines in an inertial frame of
reference. And what is a straight line in one frame had

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therefore better be a straight line in the other frame. Not
only do free particles move in straight lines in space, but
their trajectories are straight line in space-time – they don’t
change speed on their spatial straight lines.

Now let’s do the same thing for the accelerated coordinate

system. The transformation equations are now equation (8)
linking z 0 and z, which we repeat here
1
z 0 = z − gt2
2
and the other coordinates which don’t change.

Figure 4: Curvilinear coordinates transformation.

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 Again, in figure 4, every point in space-time has two
pairs of coordinates (z, t) and (z 0 , t0 ). The time trajectories
of fixed z, represented with dotted lines, don’t change. But
now the time trajectories of fixed z 0 are parabolas lying on
their side.
We can even represent negative times in the past. Think
of the elevator that was initially going down with acceler-
ation g. This creates a decelaration up to, say, t = 0 and
z = 0. And then the elevator bounces back upward with the
same acceleration g. Each parabola is just shifted relative
to the previous one by one unit to the right.
The point of this figure, of course, is, not surprisingly,
that straight lines in one frame are not straight lines in the
other frame. They become curved lines. The lines of fixed
t or fixed t0 of course are the same horizontal straight lines
in both frames. We haven’t represented them.
We should view figure 4 as just two sets of coordinates
to locate each point in space-time. On set of coordinates
has straight axes, while the second – represented in the first
frame – is curvilinear. Its z 0 = constant lines are actually
curves, while its t0 = constant lines are horizontal straight
lines. So it is a curvilinear coordinates transformation.

Something Einstein understood very early is this:

There is a connection between gravity and curvilinear coor-

dinates transformations of space-time.

Special relativity was only about linear transformations,

transformations which take uniform velocity to uniform ve-
locity. Lorentz transformations are of that nature. They
take straight lines in space-time to straight lines in space-
time.

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 But if we want to mock-up gravitational fields with the
effect of acceleration, we are really talking about transfor-
mations of the coordinates of space-time which are curvi-
linear.
That sounds extremely trivial. When Einstein said it,
probably every physicist knew it and thought: oh yeah, no
big deal. But Einstein was very clever and very persistent.
He realized that if he dug very deep into the consequences
of this, he could then answer questions that nobody knew
how to answer.
Let’s look at a simple example of a question that Ein-
stein answered using the curvature of space-time created by
acceleration and therefore – if the two are the same – by
gravity. The question is: what is the influence of gravity
on light?

Effect of gravity on light

After his work of 1905 on special relativity, Einstein be-

gan to think about gravity. When he first asked himself
the question "what is the influence of gravity on light?",
around 1907, most physicists would have answered: there
is no effect of gravity on light. Light is light. Gravity is
gravity. A light wave moving near a massive object cre-
ating a gravitational field moves in a straight line. It is a
law of light that it moves in straight lines. And there is no
reason to think that gravity has any effect on it.
But Einstein said: no, if this equivalence principle be-
tween acceleration and gravity is true, then acceleration
and gravity will affect light in the same way. And the argu-
ment was very simple. It was again one of these arguments

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which you could almost explain to a child.

Let’s start out with a light beam that is moving horizontally

with respect to the stationary reference frame, starting out
at t = 0 (figure 5). And let’s see what is the motion of the
light beam expressed in the elevator reference frame.
At t = 0 the two frames of reference match: z 0 = z for
every point in space-time, see equation (8). And they are
both at rest relative to each other, that is, at t = 0 the
velocity of the elevator is also zero because for any point of
the elevator we have ż = qt. But it begins to move up.
A flashlight sends a beam of light in the x direction,
from point (x = 0, z = 0, t = 0) in the stationary frame.
This point in space-time has also the coordinates (x0 =
0, z 0 = 0, t0 = 0) in the elevator frame.

Figure 5: Trajectory of a light beam in the stationary

reference frame.

In the stationary frame of reference we know how the

light beam moves. Einstein said: in the frame of reference

19
without any gravity the light beam goes in a straight line.
Of course there is gravity on the surface of the Earth, but
let’s neglect it – or transport all our experiment in outer
space in an inertial frame away from any gravitational field.
The only apparent gravity, in the elevator, will be due to
its acceleration.
The equations of motion for the light beam – think of
it, for instance, as one photon – are, in the stationary frame
of reference,
x = ct
(12)
z=0
Now, let’s replace the unprimed coordinates of the photon
(that is, the coordinates in the stationary frame) by its
primed coordinates (that is, the coordinates in the elevator
frame). Equations (12) become

x0 = ct
qt2 (13)
z0 + =0
2
In the elevator, the photon trajectory is shown in figure 6.
It is a parabola, whose equation linking z 0 and x0 we can
obtain by eliminating t in equations (13).

If I am in the elevator, I say: gravity is pulling the light

beam down. You say: no, it’s just that the elevator is
accelerating upward. That makes it look like the light beam
moves on a curved trajectory. And Einstein said they are
the same thing.
This proved to him that a gravitational field must bend
a light ray. And that was something that no other physicist
knew at the time.

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 Figure 6: Trajectory of a light beam in the elevator
reference frame.

Till now what we have learned – the thing we want to ab-

stract – is that it is interesting to think about curvilinear
coordinates transformations.
When we do think about curvilinear coordinates trans-
formations, the form of Newton’s laws do change. One of
the things that happen is that apparent gravitational fields
materialize, that are physically indistinguishable from or-
dinary gravitational fields.
Well are they really physically indistinguishable? Not
really. So let’s talk about real gravitational fields, namely
gravitational field of gravitating objects like the Sun or the
Earth.

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 Tidal forces

In figure 7 is represented the Earth or the Sun. And the

gravitational acceleration doesn’t point vertically on the
page. It points toward the center.

Figure 7: Gravitational field of a massive object,

for instance the Earth

It is pretty obvious that there is no way that you could do

a coordinate transformation like we did in the preceding
section which will remove the effect of the gravitational
field.
OK, if you are in a small laboratory in space and that
laboratory is allowed to simply fall toward the Earth, or
whatever massive object you are considering, then you will
think that in that laboratory there is no gravitational field.

22
 Exercise 1 : If we are falling freely in a uniform
gravitational field, prove that we feel no grav-
ity and that things float around us like in the
International Space Station.

But there is no way globally to introduce a coordinate

transformation which is going to get rid of the fact that
there is a gravitational field pointing inward toward the
center. For instance a very simple transformation similar
to equations (12) might get rid of the gravity in a small
portion on one side of the Earth, but the same transforma-
tion will increase the gravitational field on the other side.
And even more complex transformations will not solve the
problem.

Figure 8: 2000-mile-man falling toward the Earth

One way to understand why we can’t get rid of gravity is to

think of an object which is not very very small compared to

23
the gravitational field. My favorite example is a 2000-mile-
man who is falling in the Earth gravitational field, figure 8.
Because he is large, not a point mass, the different parts
of him feel different gravitational fields. The further away
you are the weaker the gravitational field is. So his head
feels a weaker gravitational field than his feet. His feet are
being pulled harder than his head. He feels like he is being
stretched. If he is freely falling he can’t distinguish this
from a stretching feeling.
But he knows that there is a gravitating object there.
The sense of discomfort that he feels, due to the non-uniform
gravitational field, cannot be removed by going to a falling
reference frame. And indeed no change of mathematical
description whatsoever has ever changed a physical phe-
nomenon.

The forces he feels are called tidal forces. They cannot be

removed by a coordinate transformation.
Let’s also see what happens if he is falling not vertically
but sideways? In that case his head and his feet will be at
the same distance of the Earth. Both will be subjected the
same force in magnitude pointing to the Earth. But since
they are radial, they are not parallel. A part of component
of the force pulling his head will be along his body, and a
part of the force pulling his feet too. So they will also tend
to compress or shrink him.
That sense of compression is again not something that
you can remove by any coordinate transformation. Being
stretched or shrunk or both by the Earth field – if you are
big enough – is an invariant fact. It is not something you
can get rid of by doing a coordinate transformation.

So it is not true that gravity is equivalent to going to an

24
accelerated reference frame. Einstein of course knew this.
What he really meant is:

Small objects for a small length of time cannot tell the

difference between a gravitational field and an accelerated
frame of reference.

That raises the question: if I present you with with a force

field, does there exist a coordinate transformation which
will make it disappear?
For example the force field, inside the elevator, associ-
ated with its uniform acceleration with respect to an iner-
tial reference frame, was just a vertical force field pointing
downward and uniform everywhere. There was a transfor-
mation making it disappear: simply to use the z coordinates
instead of the z 0 . It is a nonlinear coordinate transforma-
tion, but nevertheless it gets rid of the force field.
With other kinds of coordinate transformations – from
inertial to moving –, you can make the gravitational field
look more complicated, for example transformations which
affect also the x-coordinate. They can make the gravita-
tional field bend toward the x-axis.
You might simultaneously accelerate along the z-axis
while oscillating back and forth in the x-axis. What kind of
gravitational field do you see? A very complicated one: it’s
got a vertical component and it has got a time dependent
oscillating component along the x-axis.
If instead of the elevator you use a merry-go-round, and
instead of the (x0 , z 0 , t) coordinates of the elevator, you use
polar coordinates (r, θ, t), an objet that in the initial frame
was fixed, or had a simple motion like the light beam, may
have a weird motion. You may think that you have discov-
ered some repulsive gravitational field phenomenon. But

25
no matter what, the reverse coordinate change will reveal
that your apparently messy field is only the consequence of
a coordinate change.
By appropriate coordinate transformations you can make
some pretty complicated apparent gravitational fields. They
noneless are not genuine, in the sense that they don’t result
from the presence of a massive object.

I tell you what the gravitational field is everywhere, how

do you determine whether it is just the sort of fake grav-
itational field coming from a coordinate transformation to
a frame with various kinds of accelerations with respect to
an inertial one, or it is a real genuine gravitational field?
Well, if we are talking about Newtonian gravity – not
a field for instance coming from electromagnetism – there
is an easy way. You just calculate the tidal forces. You de-
termine whether that gravitational field will have an effect
on an object which will cause it to squeeze and stretch.
If calculations are not pratical, you take an object, a
mass, a crystal. You let it fall and you see whether there
was stresses and strains on it. These will be detectable
things. If you detect stresses and strains then it is a real
gravitational field. If you discover on the other hand that
the gravitational field has no such effect, that any object,
wherever it is located and let free to move, experiences no
tidal force, in other words that the field has no tendency to
distort a freely falling system, then it is not a real gravita-
tional field.
The test object must be let free. It should not be held
in place by ropes and pulleys or anything else, be it in the
elevator or on the merry-go-round.

In summary: how do we know when it is possible to make

26
a coordinate transformation that removes the gravitational
field? How do we know when the field is just an artifact of
the coordinate system, and when it is a real physical thing,
due to some gravitating mass for example?
If the gravitational field is small enough that it doesn’t
vary between one part of the system and another, that is
when the equivalence principle holds with accuracy. Ein-
stein knew all that. So he asked himself the question: what
kind of mathematics goes into trying to answer the question
of whether a field is a genuine gravitational one or not.

Non-Euclidean geometry

Atfer his work on special relativity, and after learning of

the mathematical structure in which Minkowski7 had recast
it, Einstein knew that special relativity had a geometry
associated with it.
So let’s take a brief rest from gravity to remind our-
selves of this important idea in special relativity. The only
thing we are going to use about special relativity is that
space-time has a geometry.

In the Minkowski geometry of special relativity, there exists

a kind of length between two points, that is, between two
events in space-time.

7
Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909), Polish-German mathematician
and theoretical physicist.

27
 Figure 9: Minkowski geometry.

The distance between P and Q is not the usual Euclidean

distance that we could be tempted to think of.

The distance, or length, between any pair of points P and

Q, close to each other or not, is defined as follows. Let’s
call ∆X the 4-vector going from P to Q. To the pair P Q
is associated the quantity denoted ∆τ , defined by

∆τ 2 = ∆t2 − ∆x2 − ∆y 2 − ∆z 2

∆τ is called the proper time between P and Q. It is an

invariant under Lorentz transformations. That is why it
qualifies as a kind of distance, just like in Euclidean 3D
space the distance of a point from the origin, x2 + y 2 + z 2 ,
is invariant under rotations.

Equivalently we may define ∆s by

∆s2 = −∆t2 + ∆x2 + ∆y 2 + ∆z 2

28
∆s is called the proper distance between P and Q.

∆τ and ∆s are not two different concepts. They are the

same – just differing by an imaginary factor i. They are just
two ways to talk about the Minkowski distance between P
and Q. Depending on which physicist is writing the equa-
tions, he or she will rather use ∆τ or ∆s as the distance
between P and Q.

Einstein knew about this non-Euclidean geometry of spe-

cial relativity. In his work to include now gravity, and to
investigate the consequences of the equivalence principle,
he also realized that the question we asked at the end of
the previous section – are there coordinate transformations
which can remove the effect of forces? – was very similar
to a certain mathematics problem that had been studied
at great length by Riemann. It is the question of deciding
whether a geometry is flat or not.

Riemannian geometry

What is a flat geometry?

Intuitively, it is the following idea: the geometry of a
page is flat, the geometry of the surface of a sphere or a
section of a sphere is not flat.
And the intrinsic geometry of the page remains flat even
if we furl the page like in figure 10. We shall expound math-
ematically on the idea in a moment. For now, let’s just say
that the intrinsic geometry of a surface is the geometry that
a bug roaming on it, equipped with tiny surveying tools,
would see if it were trying to establish an ordnance survey

29
map of the surface. If it worked carefully it might see hills
and valleys, bumps and troughs, if there were any, but it
would not determine, as we see it, that the page is furled.
We see it because for us the page is embedded in the 3D
Euclidean space we live in. And by unfurling the page, we
can make its flatness obvious again.

Figure 10: The intrinsic geometry of a page remains flat.

Einstein realized that there was a great deal of similarity

in the two questions of whether a geometry is non-flat and
whether a space-time has a real gravitational field in it.

Riemann had studied the first question. But Riemann had

never dreamt about geometries which have a minus sign in
the definition of the square of the distance. He was think-
ing about geometries which were non-Euclidean but were
similar to Euclidean geometry.

Minkowski geometry is non-Euclidean in two respects. The

square of the distance between two points is not just ∆x2 +
∆y 2 + ∆z 2 . But furthermore the square of the distance can
be negative!

30
So we want to start with the mathematics of Riemannian
geometry, that is of spaces where the distance between two
points is not the Euclidean distance, but its square is always
positive8 .

Figure 11: Distance between two points in a space.

We are not going to spend a huge amount of time on it,

but we shall nevertheless study a little bit the geometry of
Riemannian surfaces.

We look at two points in a space (figure 11). In our picture

there are three dimensions, three axes, X 1 , X 2 and X 3 .
There could be more. So a point has three components,
that we can write X m , where m is understood to run from
one to three or to whatever number of axes there is. And a
little shift between two points can be denoted ∆X m or, if
it is to become an infinitesimal, dX m .

8
In mathematics, they are called positive definite distances.

31
 If this space has the usual Euclidean geometry, the
square of the length of dX m is given by Pythagoras the-
orem
dS 2 = (dX 1 )2 + (dX 2 )2 + (dX 3 )2 + ... (14)
If we are in three-dimensions then there are three terms
in the sum. If we are in two dimensions, there are two of
them. If the space is 26 dimensional, there are 26 of them
and so forth. That is the formula for Euclidean distance
between two points in the Euclidean space.

To pursue our study of Riemannian geometry, it is now best

to think of a two-dimensional space. It can be the ordinary
plane, or it can be a two-dimensional surface that we may
visualize embedded in 3D Euclidean space with clearly de-
fined unit distance, because it enables us to conveniently
view its curvature. See figure 12.

Figure 12: Two dimensional variety.

There is nothing special about two dimensions for such a

surface, except that it is easy to visualize. Mathematicians

32
think of "surfaces" even when those have more dimensions.
And usually they don’t call them surfaces but varieties.

Gauss had already understood that on curved surfaces the

formula for the distance between two points was more com-
plicated in general than equation (14).
Indeed we must not be confused by the fact that in
figure 12, the surface is shown embedded in the usual three-
dimensional Euclidean space. This is just for convenience
of representation.
We ought to think of the surface, or variety, as a space
in itself, equipped with a coordinate system to locate any
point, with curvy lines corresponding to one coordinate con-
stant, etc. and where a distance has been defined. We must
forget about the embedding 3D Euclidean space.
The distance between two points on the surface is cer-
tainly not their distance in the embedding 3D Euclidean
space, and is not even necessarily defined on the surface
with the equivalent of equation (14).

Riemann generalized these surfaces and their metric (the

way to compute distances) to any dimensions. But let’s
continue to use our picture with two dimensions in order to
sustain intuition. And let’s go slowly, so as not to miss any
important detail.

So the first thing we do with a surface is to put some co-

ordinates on it. Indeed we want to be able to quantify
various statements involving its points, therefore we need
to introduce some coordinates onto it.
We just lay out some kind of coordinates as if drawing
them with a chalk. We don’t worry at all about whether
the coordinate axes are straight lines or not, because for all

33
we know when the surface is a really curved surface there
probably won’t even be things that we can call straight
lines. So we just lay out some coordinates and we still call
them X’s.
The values of the X’s are not related directly to dis-
tances. They are just numerical labels. The points (X 1 =
0, X 2 = 0) and (X 1 = 1, X 2 = 0) are not necessarily sep-
arated by a distance of one. Now we take two neighboring
points (figure 13).

Figure 13: Two neighboring points,

and the shift dX m they form.

The two neighboring points are again related by a shift of

coordinates. But, unlike in figure 11 which was still a Eu-
clidean space, now we are on an arbitrary curved surface
with arbitrary coordinates.

Now we define a distance on the surface for points separated

by a small shift like dX m . It won’t be as simple as equation
(14). It will have similarities with it. Here is the new
definition of dS 2
X
dS 2 = gmn (X) dX m dX n (15)
m, n

34
This is the formula in any geometry curved or otherwise.

Incidentally equation (15) applies even to flat geometries

equipped with curvilinear coordinates. Suppose you take
a flat geometry, like the surface of the page, but you use
some curvilinear coordinates to locate points. And you ask
what is the distance between two points close to each other.
Then in general the square of the distance between two
points close to each other will be a quadratic form in the
coordinate shifts dX m ’s. A quadratic form means a sum
of terms, each of which is either the product of two little
shifts, or the square of one little shift, times a coefficient
like gmn which depends on X.

Let’s consider a simple example of distance on a curved sur-

face. It is the distance on the surface of the Earth between
two points nearby characterized by longitude and latitude.
Let’s denote R the radius of the Earth.

Figure 14: Distance on the surface of the Earth.

We take two points (φ, θ), and (φ + dφ, θ + dθ), where θ

is the latitude and φ the longitude.

35
We apply Pythagoras theorem in a small approximately flat
rectangular region to compute the square of the length of its
diagonal. One side along a meridian has length Rdθ. The
other side along a parallel has a length Rdφ but corrected
by the cosine of the latitude. At the equator it is the full
Rdφ, but at the pole it is zero. So the formula is

dS 2 = R2 dθ2 + (cosθ)2 dφ2

 
(16)

Here is an example of squared distance not just being dθ2 +

dφ2 but having some coefficient functions in front. In this
case the interesting coefficient function is (cosθ)2 in front
of one of the terms (dX m )2 . We also note that there are no
terms of the form dX m dX n because the natural curvilinear
coordinates we chose on the sphere are still orthogonal at
every point.
In other examples – on the sphere with more involved
coordinates, or on a more general curved surface like in fig-
ure 13 – where the coordinates are not necessarily locally
perpendicular the formula for dS 2 would be more compli-
cated and have terms in dX m dX n . But it will still be a
quadratic form. There will never be dθ3 terms. There will
never be things linear, everything will be quadratic.

You may wonder why we define the distance dS only for

small – actually infinitesimal – displacements. The reason
is that to talk about distance between two points A and B
far away from each other, we must first of all define what
we mean. There may be bumps and troughs in between.
Well, we could mean the shortest distance as follows: we
would put a peg at A, a peg at B and pull a string as tight
as we can between the two points. That would define one
notion of distance. Of course there might be several paths
with the same value. One might go around the hill one way.

36
And then the other would go around the hill the other way.
Simply think on the Earth of going from the North pole to
the South pole.
Furthermore even if there is only one answer, we have to
know the geometry on the surface everywhere in the whole
region where A and B are, not only to calculate the distance
but to know actually where to place the string. So the
notion of distance between any two points is a complicated
one.
But the notion of distance between two neighboring
points is not so complicated. That is because locally a
smooth surface can be approximated by the tangent plane
and the curvilinear coordinates lines by straight lines – not
necessarily perpendicular but straight.

Metric tensor

Now we shall go deeper into the geometry of a curved sur-

face and its links with equation (15) which defines the dis-
tance between two neighboring points on it. Recall the
equation X
dS 2 = gmn (X) dX m dX n
m, n

In order to get a feel about the geometry of the surface

and its behavior, let’s imagine that we arrange elements
from a Tinkertoy Construction set along the curved sur-
face. For instance they could approximately follow the co-
ordinate lines on the surface. And we would also add more
rigid elements diagonally. This would create a lattice as

37
shown in figure 15. But any reasonably dense lattice, sort
of triangulating the surface, would do as well.

Figure 15: Lattice of rigid Tinkertoy elements

arranged on the surface.

Suppose furthermore that the Tinkertoy elements are hinged

together in a way that let them freely move in any direction
from each other.

Now let’s lift our lattice from the surface. Sometimes it

will keep its shape rigidly, sometimes it won’t. It will not
keep its shape if going from the initial shape to a new shape
doesn’t force any Tinkertoy element to be stretched or com-
pressed or bend.

And in some cases it will even be possible to lay it out

flat. It is the case, for instance, in figure 10 going from
the shape on the right to the shape on the left – which is
just a flat page.

38
 Exercise 2 : Is it possible to find a curved sur-
face and a lattice of rods arranged on it, which
cannot be flattened out, but which can change
shape?

We shall see that the initial surface being able to take other
shapes or not corresponds to the gmn ’s of equation (15) hav-
ing certain mathematical properties.

The collection of gmn ’s has a name. It is called the metric

tensor. It is the mathematical object that enables us to
compute the local distance between two neighboring points
on our Riemannian surface.

When the lattice of Tinkertoy elements can be laid out flat,

the geometry of the surface is said to be flat. We will define
it more carefully later.

Sometimes on the other hand the lattice of little rods cannot

be laid out flat. For example on the sphere, if we initially
lay out a lattice triangulating a large chunk of sphere, we
won’t be able to remove it to lay it out on a flat plane9 .

The question now we have to address is this: if I had made

a lattice of little rods covering a surface, and I gave you
the length of each rod, without yourself building the lattice
how could you tell me whether it is a flat space or it is
an intrinsically curved space which cannot be flattened out
9
This is a well-known problem of cartographers, which lead to
the invention of various kinds of maps of the world, the most famous
being the Mercator projection map invented by Flemish cartographer
Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594).

39
and laid out on a flat plane?

Let’s formulate it more precisely and mathematically: we

start from the metric tensor gmn (X) which is a function
of position, in some set of coordinates. Keep in mind that
there are many different possible sets of curvilinear coor-
dinates on the surface, and in every set of coordinates the
metric tensor may look different. It will have different com-
ponents, just like the same 3-vector in ordinary 3D Eu-
clidean space has different components depending on the
basis used to represent it.
So I select one set of coordinates and I give you the
metric tensor of my surface. In effect I tell you the distance
between every pair of neighboring points. Now the question
is: is my surface flat or is it not flat?

Of course we have to explain what we mean by flat.

You may think of "checking Pi". Here is the way it would go

– think of a 2D surface embedded in the usual 3D Euclidean
space as shown in figure 12. You select a point and mark
out a disk around it. Then you measure its radius r as
well as its circonference l. And you divide l by 2r. If you
get 3.14159... you would say that it is flat. Otherwise you
would say that it is not flat, it is curved.
That procedure is good for a two-dimensional surface
under certain conditions. But anyway it is not so great for
higher dimensional surfaces.

So what is the mathematics of taking a metric tensor and

asking if its space is flat. What does it mean for it to be
flat? By definition

40
The space is flat if you can find a coordinate transformation,
that is, a different set of coordinates, in which the distance
formula for dS 2 is just (dX 1 )2 + (dX 2 )2 + ...(dX n )2 , as it
would be in Euclidean geometry.

That the initial gmn ’s form the unit matrix, with ones on
the diagonal and zeroes elsewhere – as if equation (15) were
just Pythagoras theorem – is not necessary. But we must
find a coordinate transformation which can make it look
like that.

In that sense, it has a vague similarity – it turned out not

to be a vague similarity at all but a close parallel – with
the question of whether you can find a coordinate trans-
formation which removes gravitational field. The question
is: can you find a coordinate transformation which removes
the curvy character of the metric tensor gmn ?

In order to answer that geometric question, we have to do

some mathematics essential to relativity. It is not possible
to understand general relativity without it. The mathemat-
ics is tensor analysis and a little bit of differential geometry.
At first it looks annoying because we shall have to deal
with all these indices floating around, and different coor-
dinate systems, and partial derivatives of components, etc.
But once you get used to it, it is really very simple. It was
invented by Ricci-Curbastro and Levi-Civita at the end of
the XIXth century to build on works of Gauss and Riemann.
And it was actually made even simpler by the famous Ein-
stein summation convention which astutely gets rid of most
summation symbols.

To find a set of coordinates that make equation (15) become

41
equation (14) is a more involved procedure than just diag-
onalizing the matrix gmn . The reason is that there is not
one matrix. gmn depends on X. It is the same tensor field,
but it has a different matrix at each point10 . You cannot
diagonalize all of them at the same time. At a given point,
you can indeed diagonalize gmn (X) even if the surface is
not flat. It is equivalent to working locally in the tangent
plane of the surface at X, and orthogonalizing out the co-
ordinate axes there. But you cannot say that a surface is
flat because it can be made at any given point locally to
look like the Euclidean plane.

So we are looking for a coordinate transformation, X → Y ,

which turns gmn into the Kronecker delta function δmn . Re-
member, X and Y represent the same point on the surface.
They are its coordinates in different coordinate systems.
And the Kronecker delta function is
δmn = 1, if m = n
δmn = 0, if m 6= n

We want the square of the interval distance to become

X
dS 2 = δmn (Y ) dY m dY n (17)
m, n

You can also think of δmn as the unit matrix, with ones
everywhere on the diagonal, and zeroes everywhere off the

10
For a given set of coordinates, it has a collection of matrices –
one for each point. And for another set of coordinates, it will have
another collection of matrices. And we still talk of the same tensor
field. Its components depend on the coordinates. But the tensor itself
is an abstract object which doesn’t. We already met the distinction
with 3D vectors.

42
diagonal.

In summary: I give you the metric tensor of my surface,

that is, the gmn of equation (15), which is
X
dS 2 = gmn (X) dX m dX n
m, n

and I ask you if by a coordinate transformation X → Y

you can reduce it to equation (17).
If yes, the space is called flat. If no, the space is called
curved. Of course the space could have some portions which
are flat. There could exist a set of coordinates such that in
a region the metric tensor be the Kronecker delta. But it
is called flat if it is everywhere flat.

This is now a mathematics problem: given a tensor field

gmn (X) on a multi-dimensional variety, how do we figure
out if there is a coordinate transformation which would
change it into the Kronecker delta function?
To answer that question, we have to understand better
how things transform when you make coordinate transfor-
mations. And that is the subject of tensor analysis.

The analogy between tidal forces and curvature actually is

not an analogy, it is a very precise equivalence. In the gen-
eral theory of relativity, the way you diagnose tidal forces is
by calculating the curvature tensor. A flat space is defined
as a space where the curvature tensor is zero everywhere.
Therefore it is a very precise correspondence:

Gravity is curvature.

But we will come to it as we get through tensor analysis.

43
Obviously, in trying to determine whether we can transform
away gmn (X) and turn it into the trivial δmn (Y ), the first
question to ask is how does gmn (X) transform when we
change coordinates?
We have to introduce notions of tensor analysis which
are rather easy.

First tensor rule: contravariant vectors

Sometimes tensor notations are a bit of a nuisance because

of all the indices. At first we can get confused by them. But
soon you will discover that the manipulations obey strict
rules and turn out to be rather simple.

We shall begin with a simpler thing than gmn (X). Suppose

there are two sets of coordinates on our surface. There a set
of coordinates X m . And I could call the other coordinates
X 0 as we did earlier. But then we would be running into
horrible notation like X 11 and X 011 . So the second set of
coordinates, we call Y m .
To be very explicit, a same point P on the surface  has
coordinates X 1 (P ), X 2 (P ), X 3 (P ), ... , X N (P ) if we
are
 1on variety of dimension N . And italso has coordinates
Y (P ), Y 2 (P ), Y 3 (P ), ... , Y N (P ) .
But we will almost never recall the variable P . So we
have at every point a collection of X m coordinates and a
collection of Y m coordinates.

The X’s and Y ’s are related because if you know the co-
ordinates of a point P in one set of coordinates then in
principle you know where the point is. Therefore you know

44
its coordinates in the other coordinate system. So each co-
ordinate X m is a function of all the coordinates Y n . We
can use whatever dummy index variable we want if that
helps avoid confusion. In fact we write simply
X m (Y )
Likewise each Y m is assumed to be a known function of all
the X n ’s.
Y m (X)

We have two coordinate systems, each one being a function

of the other.

Now we ask: how the differential elements dX m transform?

The collection of differential elements dX m is a small vector
as shown in figure 16. Remember, the vector itself is a pair
of points (an origin and an end). It is independent of the
coordinate system. But in order to work with it, most of the
time we must look at it expressed with components. And
those dX m are the components of the little displacement
under consideration, in the X coordinate system.

Figure 16: Displacement dX m .

The notation dX m is used to represent the small vector

dX m = dX 1 , dX 2 , dX 3 , ... , dX N
 

45
Said another way, when we change a little bit X 1 , and
change a little bit X 2 , and change a little bit X 3 etc. the
point X moves to a nearby point, and the displacement is
dX m .

Now we look at how dY m , for any given m, can be expressed

in terms of the dX p ’s. It is an elementary result of calculus
that
X ∂Y m
dY m = p
dX p (18)
p
∂X

Remember elementary calculus: if a function f depends on

two variables a and b we write

f (a, b)

Then the total differential of f when a and b each moves a

little bit is given by the formula
∂f ∂f
df = da + db
∂a ∂b

Think of a function f as simple as the area of a rectangle

of length a and width b: f (a, b) = ab.

Equation (18), reproduced here

X ∂Y m
dY m = p
dX p
p
∂X

says nothing more than figure 17 in a more general setting.

46
 ∂f ∂f
Figure 17: df = da + db
∂a ∂b
it is the green area.

Let’s spell out even more explicitly what equation (18) says:
the total change of some particular component Y m is the
sum of the rate of change of Y m when you change only X 1 ,
times the little change in X 1 , namely dX 1 , plus the rate
of change of Y m when you change only X 2 , times the little
change in X 2 , namely dX 2 , and so forth.

Now right here we have the first example of the transfor-

mation of a tensor.

We now have the expression of the small displacement of a

point on the surface (figure 16), expressed in two different
coordinate systems, dX m and dY m . dX m and dY m are
two sets of components for the same displacement. And we
know how to go from one set to the other. Let’s represent
again the small displacement, and also locally the two sets
of coordinates, figure 18:

47
 Figure 18: Small displacement, and two sets of coordinates.

Equation (18) is the transformation property of the com-

ponents of the vector. Now usual vectors, we shall call con-
travariant vectors. So equation (18), which is really a set
of equations, is the transformation properties of the com-
ponents of what is called a contravariant vector.

If we leave for a moment geometric representations or visu-

alizations, and think in more abstract mathematical terms,
a contravariant vector simply means a thing which trans-
forms as in equation (18).

Let’s give the general definition of a contravariant vector.

It is an object, a "thing", which has components

Vm

These components depend on the coordinate system. V m is

the collection of components of the object in the X frame.
Let’s denote (V 0 )m the components of the same object in

48
the Y frame. For the object to be a contravariant vector
its two sets of components must satisfy
X ∂Y m
(V 0 )m = p
Vp (19)
p
∂X

Equation (19) is the fundamental equation of a contravari-

ant vector. We will soon see other types of objects called
covariant vectors.

Remember, the ordinary vectors of R3 , or Rn , or of any

vector space are contravariant vectors. The position of a
point is a contravariant vector. The speed of a particle is
a contravariant vector. In tensor analysis, they are called
contravariant because they change contrary to the change
of basis. For instance if your new basis vectors are simply
the old basis vectors, all divided by 10, then V 0 will simply
be V multiplied by 10.

There are many things which transform according to equa-

tion (19) and therefore are contravariant vectors.

Einstein summation convention

One of Einstein’s great contributions to notations was that
you can leave out the summation sign in equation (19):
X ∂Y m
(V 0 )m = p
Vp
p
∂X

can be rewritten
∂Y m p
(V 0 )m = V (20)
∂X p

49
People will figure out that there is an implicit summation
just by looking at the equation. They will see that the left
hand side of equation (20) has no index p, while the right
hand side has an index p, so it must be summed over.
Whenever there is a repeated index like p, that seems
not to make sense, because it appears on the right side of
the equation, but disappears from the left side, it really
stands for summation over that index.

Second tensor rule: covariant vectors

Now let’s talk about covariant vectors. They are completely
different creatures. The most typical covariant vectors are
gradients.

Suppose we have a scalar function defined on our space,

surface, variety – whatever you call it. That is, if we want
to use the terminology introduced in Volume 3, we consider
a scalar field. A scalar function is a function that doesn’t
have to be transformed. It just has some meaningful value
at every point in space. Let’s call the function S. Its values
are S(X), if we use X for the coordinates of a point.

Then the gradient of S is also a kind of vector. What is the

gradient of S? It is the set of derivatives of S with respect
to each X p
∂S(X)
(21)
∂X p
Example of scalar fields are the temperature, the atmo-
spheric pressure, the Higgs field, whatever has, at any point

50
in the space, a value that is not multi-dimensional but sim-
ply a number, and which doesn’t change if we change coor-
dinates.
The wind velocity is not a scalar field because at every
point it has a vector value. It is a vector field. And if we
tried to consider only the first component of the vector rep-
resenting the wind, it would not be a scalar field, because
it would not be invariant under change of coordinates.

So the gradient of a scalar function is a vector. It is the

gradient vector field. But it doesn’t transform in the same
way as contravariant vectors. If we compute the gradient
of S with respect to the Y coordinates instead of the X
coordinates, we get a different set of values, and we want
to know how there are related.
It is easy to figure out. Suppose we know the partial
derivatives of S with respect to the X p ’s, equation (21).
We want to compute
∂S
∂Y m
Again it is an elementary calculus problem. The rate
of change in S when we change Y m a little bit, keeping all
the other Y coordinates fixed, is just derivative of S with
respect to X p times the derivative of X p with respect to
Y m – summed over all the p’s.
∂S ∂S ∂X p
= (22)
∂Y m ∂X p ∂Y m
This is some version of the chain rule (see Volume 1, Chap-
ter 2 in which the chain rule is explained).
Again the right hand side of equation (22) means sum
over p. We shall no longer write the big Σp sign meaning
that the sum is over p. If there is a repeated index on one

51
side, which doesn’t show up on the other side, it must mean
that it is summed over. That is Einstein summation con-
vention. It made life a lot easier for publishers and printers
who didn’t have to put in summation signs all over the
place. And it makes mathematics texts on certain topics
less cluttered and easier to read.

Now let’s see how equation (22) compares with equation

(20) for contravariant vectors?
Let’s denote W the gradient of S with respect to the X
coordinates, and W 0 the gradient of S with respect to the
Y coordinates. Equation (22) can then be rewritten

∂X p
(W 0 )m = Wp (23)
∂Y m

Notice that we now write the indices m of W 0 and p of

W downstairs. We will see why this makes nice sense in a
minute.

Equation (23) is the fundamental equation linking the primed

and unprimed version of components of a covariant vector,
that is its components in the Y system and in the X system.

Let’s rewrite both equations (20) and (23) next to each

other, and relabel them (24a) and (24b):

Contravariant vectors
∂Y m p
(V 0 )m = V (24a)
∂X p

52
 Covariant vectors
∂X p
(W 0 )m = Wp (24b)
∂Y m

They look very much alike except that ∂Y m /∂X p ap-

pears in the first one, and the inverse, ∂X p /∂Y m , in the
second.

Let’s repeat that ordinary vectors – displacements of posi-

tions, or velocities for instance – are contravariant vectors.
We saw that they change contrary to the basis change.
Gradients, on the other hand, change like the basis
change. For instance if the new basis vectors are obtained
simply by dividing the old ones by 10, then the gradient
components will also be divided by 10. That is why such
objects are called covariant. They are called covariant vec-
tors, but they are not ordinary vectors. In fact in math-
ematics, they are dual vectors, like the components of a
linear form that can be applied to ordinary vectors.

Equations (24a) and (24b) are fundamental equations for

this course. The reader needs to understand them, become
familiar and at ease with them, because they are completely
central to the entire subject of general relativity.
He or she needs to know where the indices go for dif-
ferent kinds of objects, how these objects transform. That
is in some sense what general relativity is all about. It is
about the transformation properties of different kinds of
objects.

53
 Covariant and contravariant vectors and tensors

We have seen two ways to think about an ordinary vector.

First of all we can think of it like we have learned in high
school: it is a displacement with a length and a direction,
that is, an arrow in a space. And this is geometrically well
defined even before we consider any basis.
But we can also think of it more abstractly as some ob-
ject which has components. And its components depend
on the basis. If the components transform in a certain way
when we change basis, namely according to equation (24a),
then the object behaves exactly like our old vectors. There-
fore we can also equate the object to an ordinary vector.
In tensor analysis we call them contravariant vectors.

Similarly, some other objects have components which trans-

form according to equation (24b). They cannot be equated
to our old ordinary vectors, but to other geometric things
– dual vectors which don’t concern us much here. We call
them covariant vectors.

A vector – be it contravariant or covariant – is a special

case of a tensor. We are not going to define tensors ge-
ometrically. For us, at first, tensors will be things which
are defined by the way that they transform. The way they
transform means the way they change when we go from one
set of coordinates to another.
Later on we will give a geometric interpretation of ten-
sors. We will also go deeper into contravariant and covari-
ant vectors. We will see that an object with one index can
have a contravariant version and a covariant version. All
this will be studied in the next chapter. For the time being,
let’s continue to proceed step by step in our construction
of the mathematical tools necessary for general relativity.

54
So the next step, for us now, is to talk about tensors with
more than one index.
The best way to approach tensors with several indices
is to consider a special very simple case. Let’s imagine the
product of two contravariant vectors11 . We consider the
two contravariant vectors V and U , and we consider the
product
V mU n

V and U don’t have to come from the same space. If the

dimensionality of the space of V is M , and the dimensional-
ity of the space of U is N , there are M N such products. As
usual, we use the notation V m U n to denote one product as
well as the collection of all of them – just like V m denotes
one component of the contravariant vector V , but is also a
notation, showing explicitely the position of the index, of
the full vector V itself.

Let’s define T mn as

T mn = V m U n (25)

Notice that it matters where we write the indices of T mn ,

because T mn is not the same as T nm

T mn is a special case of a tensor or rank 2. Rank two means

that the collection of component products has two indices.
It runs over two ranges: m runs from 1 to M and n runs
from 1 to N . For example, if both V and U come from a

11
It is not the dot product nor the cross product. It is going to
be called the outer product or the tensor product. Anyway, it is an
operation which, to two things, associates a third thing.

55
four dimensional space, there will be 16 components V m U n .
In that case T mn , as we saw, represents one component but
also the entire collection of 16 components.

How does T mn transform?

For example V m and U n could be the components of the

vectors V and U in the unprimed frame of reference, the
reference frame using the X coordinates. Since we know
how the individual components transform, when we go to
the Y coordinates, we can figure out how T transforms.
Let’s call (T 0 )mn the mn-th component of the tensor in the
prime frame.
(T 0 )mn = (V 0 )m (U 0 )n

Then using equation (24a) twice, this can be rewritten

∂Y m p ∂Y n q
(T 0 )mn = V U
∂X p ∂X q

The four terms on the right hand side are just four numbers,
so we can change their order and rewrite it
∂Y m ∂Y n p q
(T 0 )mn = V U
∂X p ∂X q

Finally V p U q is just T pq . So the way T transforms is

∂Y m ∂Y n pq
(T 0 )mn = T (26)
∂X p ∂X q

We found in the special case of a product of vectors how T

transforms. Now this leads us to the following definition:

56
Anything which transforms according to equation (26) is
called a contravariant tensor of rank 2.

If there were more indices upstairs, the rule would be adapted

in the obvious manner. A tensor of rank 3, all indices con-
travariant, would transform like this:

∂Y l ∂Y m ∂Y n pqr
(T 0 )lmn = T
∂X p ∂X q ∂X r
What kind of things are tensors like that? Many things.
Products of vectors are particular examples, but there are
other things which are not products and still are tensors
according to the above definition.

We are going to see that the metric object gmn is an tensor.

But it is a tensor with covariant indices. So to finish this
chapter let’s see how things with covariant indices trans-
form. Equation (24b) shows how an object with only one
covariant index transforms. It is a tensor of rank 1 of co-
variant type.

Let’s begin again with the particular case of the product of

two covariant vectors W and Z. Their product transforms
as follows

∂X p ∂X q
(W 0 )m (Z 0 )n = Wp Zq
∂Y m ∂Y n
So here we have discovered a new transformation property
of a thing with two covariant indices, that is two downstairs
indices.
More generally let’s call it Tmn – a different object, but
we still use T for tensor. It is a tensor with two lower indices
and it transforms according to this equation

57
 0 ∂X p ∂X q
Tmn = Tmn (27)
∂Y m ∂Y n

It is left to the reader to figure out how a tensor with one

upper and one lower index must transform.

Next lesson, we will also see how the metric object g trans-
forms. And we will discover that it is a tensor with two
covariant indices.

Then the question we will ask is: given that equation (27) is
the transformation property of g, can we or can we not find
a coordinate transformation which will turn gmn into δmn .

That is the mathematics question. It is a hard mathematics

question in general. But we will find the condition.

58