First TensorFlow and now this. Tensor is quickly becoming a mathematical-term-that-sounds-familiar-to-developers-but-most-don't-know-what-it-is-actually.
When I entered college after high school* in India (around 1990), I was enamored by their library (my school didn't have one), and I was a math enthusiast (also ranked in a few state level math talent competitions). After being introduced to vectors (in math and physics) I chanced upon tensors - it seemed interesting. I found some good books in the catalog, and asked the librarian to issue one. He just refused to lend it to me, saying that it was a topic for "higher level/senior studies" (BSc/MSc). Unfortunately that time I did could not get any other source for it, so it remained sufficiently out of my radar that I never managed to get back to it. Surprisingly, looking back, it never got covered even in my engineering curriculum - probably because it was (is) considered a more Higher mathematics thing without much engineering application. Did come across it while scanning though relativity literature, but never attempted to understand it in depth. Now seems to be the time to do it!
* College or 11th std in India is the same as 11th grade High school in the US.
But can we say we know what vectors are though? As far as I know tensors are derived from vectors and I would imagine programmers don't know what vectors are in a mathematical sense.
* College or 11th std in India is the same as 11th grade High school in the US.