. The ensemble of three quantities, defined for every system of Cartesian co-ordinates, and which transform as the components of an interval, is called a vector. If the three components of a vector vanish for one system of Cartesian co-ordinates, they vanish for all systems, because the equations of transformation are homogeneous. We can thus get the meaning of the concept of a vector without referring to a geometrical representation. This behaviour of the equations of a straight line can be expressed by saying that the equation of a straight line is co-variant with respect to linear orthogonal transformations.
We shall now show briefly that there are geometrical entities which lead to the concept of tensors. Let
be the centre of a surface of the second degree,
any point on the surface, and
the projections of the interval
