Symbolic manipulation program required

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the use of GRtensor for symbolic manipulation in General Relativity (GR). Users must specify a metric to perform calculations in GRtensor, which raises questions about alternatives that allow for symbolic manipulation without a predefined metric. The Excalc package in Reduce is suggested as a potential alternative for those needing to manipulate tensors without specifying a metric. Users can define metrics as arbitrary functions in GRtensor, allowing for flexibility in calculations.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of General Relativity concepts and terminology
  • Familiarity with GRtensor software and its functionalities
  • Basic knowledge of symbolic manipulation in mathematical software
  • Experience with the Excalc package in Reduce
NEXT STEPS
  • Explore the capabilities of the Excalc package in Reduce for symbolic manipulation
  • Learn how to define arbitrary metrics in GRtensor for flexible calculations
  • Investigate the integration of Maple for solving ordinary and differential equations in GR
  • Research general identities in General Relativity and their proofs without specific metrics
USEFUL FOR

Researchers, physicists, and students in the field of General Relativity who require advanced symbolic manipulation tools for theoretical calculations and proofs.

krishna mohan
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Hi...

I have just started using GRtensor...
I realize that the calculations in GRtensor have to be done only after specifying a metric...

Is there any package which can directly do symbolic manipulation without using the metric?
 
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As far as I know, you always have to specify a metric in symbolic manipulation software. Otherwise the software would not know how to "raise" and "lower" indices of vectors, tensors, etc. Of course you always have the possibility to leave the components of the metric as unknown functions.

If you look for an alternative of GRTensor you could try th Excalc package in Reduce: http://www.uni-koeln.de/REDUCE/3.6/doc/excalc/"
 
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What sort of manipulations are you looking for? GRTensor makes it easy to manipulate a metric, which you can make as general as you like, Maple makes it easy to manipulate other mathematical thigns like ordinary and differential equations, plus a bunch of other things.

So I'm not getting a clear picture of what you're looking for...
 
I have to prove some general identities in GR...and not for a particular metric..

In GRtensor, can we put a metric to be arbitrary? Can we just set g_{ab}= g_{ab}(e,f,g,h) where e, f, g and h are arbitrary variables...and not give an explicit form?
 

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