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  2. Covariance and contravariance of vectors - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariance_and_contra...

    The first is that vectors whose components are covariant (called covectors or 1-forms) actually pull back under smooth functions, meaning that the operation assigning the space of covectors to a smooth manifold is actually a contravariant functor. Likewise, vectors whose components are contravariant push forward under smooth mappings, so the ...

  3. Curvilinear coordinates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvilinear_coordinates

    Consequently, a general curvilinear coordinate system has two sets of basis vectors for every point: {b 1, b 2, b 3} is the contravariant basis, and {b 1, b 2, b 3} is the covariant (a.k.a. reciprocal) basis. The covariant and contravariant basis vectors types have identical direction for orthogonal curvilinear coordinate systems, but as usual ...

  4. Mathematics of general relativity - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_of_general...

    At each point of a manifold, the tangent and cotangent spaces to the manifold at that point may be constructed. Vectors (sometimes referred to as contravariant vectors) are defined as elements of the tangent space and covectors (sometimes termed covariant vectors, but more commonly dual vectors or one-forms) are elements of the cotangent space.

  5. Tensors in curvilinear coordinates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensors_in_curvilinear...

    As before, , are covariant basis vectors and b i, b j are contravariant basis vectors. Also, let (e 1, e 2, e 3) be a background, fixed, Cartesian basis. A list of orthogonal curvilinear coordinates is given below.

  6. Orthogonal coordinates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_coordinates

    The basis vectors shown above are covariant basis vectors (because they "co-vary" with vectors). In the case of orthogonal coordinates, the contravariant basis vectors are easy to find since they will be in the same direction as the covariant vectors but reciprocal length (for this reason, the two sets of basis vectors are said to be reciprocal ...

  7. Levi-Civita connection - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi-Civita_connection

    The metric g can take up to two vectors or vector fields X, Y as arguments. In the former case the output is a number, the (pseudo-)inner product of X and Y. In the latter case, the inner product of X p, Y p is taken at all points p on the manifold so that g(X, Y) defines a smooth function on M. Vector fields act (by definition) as differential ...

  8. Covariant transformation - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariant_transformation

    The radial basis vectors e r and e φ appear rotated anticlockwise with respect to the rectangular basis vectors e x and e y. The covariant transformation, performed to the basis vectors, is thus an anticlockwise rotation, rotating from the first basis vectors to the second basis vectors.

  9. Skew coordinates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skew_coordinates

    The contravariant basis isn't a very convenient one to use, however it shows up in definitions so must be considered. We'll favor writing quantities with respect to the covariant basis. Since the basis vectors are all constant, vector addition and subtraction will simply be familiar component-wise adding and subtraction.