Einstein’s Italian Mathematicians

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.

Contents

1. The Ricci of Lugo
2. The making of a mathematician
3. Munich
4. Padua
5. Math and marriage
6. A promotion that wasn’t
7. The absolute differential calculus
8. The alter ego
9. Intermezzo
10. The indispensable mathematical tool
11. “Write to me next time in Italian”
12. Parallel displacements

Review

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

About the Author

Judith R. Goodstein, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.