The purpose for which vectors and tensors were defined

63 Views Asked by At

I am trying to understand vectors ,tensors and the reason they were defined. From what I have learnt, vectors were defined to make calculations easier in 2D and 3D(I haven't studied anything in 4D and above).E.g.: Instead of dealing with each direction seperately we can directly add and subtract 3D vectors.Similarly tensors were defined to make calculations easier while dealing with multiple vectors of different types E.g.:stress tensor deals with normal stress and shear stress . Is this right? Are these the actual purposes for which they were defined? Please explain.