TransWikia.com

Einstein summation and square roots

Physics Asked by StephenG on January 25, 2021

It has occurred to me I don’t know if there is a general rule about this or not.

If I have an expression like:

$$int sqrt{g_{ij}frac{dx^i}{dt}frac{dx^j}{dt}} dt$$

I take the summation inside the square root (i.e. before performing the square root).

But is this a general rule ? If I see $sqrt{a_{ij}}$ am I always supposed to assume the summation is done before the square root or is this very context dependent ?

One Answer

The inner expression reads:

$$ g_{ij} frac{dx^i}{dt} frac{dx^j}{dt} = sum_{text{all}(i,j)} g_{ij} frac{dx^i}{dt} frac{dx^j}{dt} $$

So you'd have to sum and then square root as the sum and square root operations are not interchangeable

Correct answer by Buraian on January 25, 2021

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP