The missing link: Riemann's ``Commentatio'', differential geometry and tensor analysis (Q1814003)

After some introductory remarks, the authors start by discussing some of the most significant interpretations given by historians of Riemann's 1861 Commentatio, including the ones by Struik, Spivak, Kline Freudenthal and Scholz. The main point questioned by the authors is that the Commentatio is related to Riemann's 1854 Habilitationsvortrag. The Commentatio is divided in two parts: in the first one Riemann set out to `first solve a more general question' than the one asked by the French Academy; in the second part he used this more general solution to tackle the specific problem on heat conduction. According to the authors, ``the Commentatio does not explicitly contain any geometrical analysis and is not a conscious mathematical elaboration of the geometrical concepts'' described by Riemann in his 1854 lecture. Rather than a new development of Riemann's geometrical ideas, it should be considered as a contribution to what later became known as tensor analysis. According to them, ``tensors provide the missing link between the Commentatio and modern differential geometry''. As an Appendix the authors give an English translation of Riemann's paper.