I thought this was interesting, in the 9 January
2003 Nature Magazine
"50 years ago" column:
* * * *
Gregario Ricci-Curbastro, inventor of the tensor
calculus, was
born at Lugo, in Italy, on January 12, 1853.
The absolute differential
calculus, as he himself called it, gained little
attention until Einstein
used it for the formulation of general relativity,
even though it had
reached a mature form by 1895, after some ten years
of growth.
It was so little thought of, indeed, that in 1901
Ricci was denied
the Italian Royal Prize in mathematics on the
ground that the calculus
was "useful but not essential for the treatment of
some mathematical
questions." Nevertheless he himself retained
a belief in its value...
In 1912 Einstein's attention was directed to it by
his colleague, Marcel
Grossman, and the outcome was the relativistic
theory of gravitation
published in 1916...The relativistic principle of
covariance, namely,
that the general laws of physics can be expressed
in a form which
is independent of the co-ordinate system, has a
meaning only in
so far as there exists a way of expressing them in
such a form.
The Ricci calculus provides a means of doing
so...The tensor calculus
is fully established as one of the main instruments
of modern
mathematics, and gives its inventor a permanent
place in the history
of the subject.
[From Nature, 10 January 1953]