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Tensor   (English)

Definition (undergraduate level)

A set of components - each of which is defined as a function of position in some co-ordinate system - which obeys some given transformation law. A tensor of order n has n2 components.
This is a generalisation of the idea of a vector; in fact a vector is a tensor of order 1. A tensor of order zero is a scalar.
A tensor can often be thought of as an array of values and manipulated like a matrix.

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