Tensor
![Orientation defined by an ordered set of vectors.Reversed orientation corresponds to negating the exterior product.Geometric interpretation of grade n elements in a real exterior algebra for n = 0 (signed point), 1 (directed line segment, or vector), 2 (oriented plane element), 3 (oriented volume). The exterior product of n vectors can be visualized as any n-dimensional shape (e.g. n-parallelotope, n-ellipsoid); with magnitude (hypervolume), and orientation defined by that on its n − 1-dimensional boundary and on which side the interior is.[10][11]](/uploads/202502/15/N_vector_positive_png_version2115.png)
Tensors are geometric objects that describe linear relations between geometric vectors, scalars, and other tensors. Elementary examples of such relations include the dot product, the cross product, and linear maps. Euclidean vectors, often used in physics and engineering applications, and scalars themselves are also tensors. A more sophisticated example is the Cauchy stress tensor T, which takes a direction v as input and produces the stress T on the surface normal to this vector for output, thus expressing a relationship between these two vectors, shown in the figure (right).