MATH12 - Long Quiz 4 Set B - 1st Term - 20112012

There was a blithe certainty that came from first comprehending the
full Einstein field equations, arabesques of Greek letters clinging
tenuously to the page, a gossamer web. They seemed insubstantial when
you first saw them, a string of squiggles. Yet to follow the delicate
tensors as they contracted, as the superscripts paired with
subscripts, collapsing mathematically into concrete classical entities
- potential; mass; forces vectoring in a curved geometry - that was a
sublime experience. The iron fist of the real, inside the velvet
glove of airy mathematics. ~Gregory Benford, Timescape