Intro to tensors book for self-study?

[Mothrog]

I wonder if anyone might have some suggestions for a good self-study book on tensors. I'm just starting in on Jackson and have only seen tensors briefly in my previous undergrad classes. Any suggestions?

 

[daveb]

Schaum's has a tensor book that i suseful for self-study

 

[Daverz]

See also this thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127811

The Schaum's book has a lot of worked problems, and I think it does a good job getting you up to speed, but it's a typical Schaum's outline in that it doesn't spend any time motivating the mathematics.

 

[chroot]

If you learn best by example, Schaum's is your book (and it's cheap, too). If you learn best by understanding why things are done one way rather than another, you might want to look elsewhere for a deeper treatment.

- Warren

 

[mathwonk]

i like Foundations of Differentiable Manifolds and Lie Groups
by Frank Warner,

 

[Daverz]

i like Foundations of Differentiable Manifolds and Lie Groups
by Frank Warner

Amazon has [URL[/URL]
the table of contents and an excerpt from the Warner book[/url]. Not a book that comes to mind when someone asks for an intro to tensors, but you can look it over.

[URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486658406/?tag=pfamazon01-20[/URL] listed an outline of the Lovelock & Rund book:

[quote]
Chap. 1: Preliminary Obs.-- Chap. 2: Affine Tensor Algebra in Euclidean Geometry-- Chap. 3: Tensor Analysis on Manifolds -- Chap. 4: Additional Topics from the Tensor Calculus -- Chap. 5: The Calculus of Differential Forms -- Chap. 6: Invariant Problems in the Calculus of Variations -- Chap. 7: Riemannian Geometry -- Chap. 8: Invariant Var. Principles and Phys. Field Theories -

Chap. 8 covers a good deal of General Relativity
[/quote]

(When I linked to the thread on Lovelock & Rund, I should have made it clear that I wouldn't necessarily recommend the Bishop & Goldberg book I mentioned there if your interest is just "tensors".)