Posted: Apr 12, 2021 3:41 pm
AlanF wrote:Any suggestions for a good introductory textbook on tensors?
I hate to see a post like this languishing unanswered. Maybe the short answer is that tensor analysis is not an introductory topic. Most treatments are going to assume you've already been exposed to vector spaces and linear transformations. Harold Jeffreys published a rather thin volume in 1931, entitled Cartesian Tensors, but after the first couple of chapters, the material seems to assume you've mastered multivariable calculus and the applications are in dynamics. Jeffreys was a geophysicist, so his research interests were in topics like elasticity theory. The relations between stress and strain in continuous media is the way many students first approach the topic. The physics of space-time is probably not where you want to dig in for the first time.
If that doesn't seem like what you want, there are any number of basic introductory videos at youtube on the topic of how tensors are defined and (intuitively) how they are applied.