The Mathematica® Journal

Sectional Curvature in
Riemannian Manifolds
Elliott Fairchild
Francis Owen
Brendan Burns Healy

The metric structure on a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian

manifold is entirely determined by its metric tensor, which has
a matrix representation in any given chart. Encoded in this
metric is the sectional curvature, which is often of interest to
mathematical physicists, differential geometers and geometric
group theorists alike. In this article, we provide a function to
compute the sectional curvature for a Riemannian manifold
given its metric tensor. We also define a function to obtain the
Ricci tensor, a closely related object.

■ Introduction
A Riemannian manifold is a differentiable manifold together with a Riemannian metric
tensor that takes any point in the manifold to a positive-definite inner product function on
its tangent space, which is a vector space representing geodesic directions from that point
[1]. We can treat this tensor as a symmetric matrix G with entries denoted by gi j repre-
senting the relationship between tangent vectors at a point in the manifold, once a system
of local coordinates has been chosen [2, 3]. In the case of a parameterized surface, we can
use the parameters to compute the full metric tensor.

In[1]:= ParameterizedSurfaceMetric[parametrization_, {u_, v_}] :=

Module[
{
U = D[parametrization, u],
V = D[parametrization, v]
},
{ {U.U, U.V}, {V.U, V.V} }
]

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2 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

A classical parametrization of a surface is the standard parameterization of the sphere.

We compute the metric tensor of the standard sphere below.

In[2]:= SphereParameterization[u_, v_] :=

{Cos[u] Sin[v], Sin[u] Sin[v], Cos[v]}

In[3]:= MatrixForm @
Simplify @ ParameterizedSurfaceMetric[
SphereParameterization[u, v], {u, v}]

Out[3]//MatrixForm=
Sin[v]2 0
0 1

This also works for more complicated surfaces. The following is an example taken from [4].

In[4]:= BumpySphere[u_, v_] :=

{Sin[u] Sin[v] + 1 / 20 Cos[20 v], Cos[u] Sin[v] + 1 / 20 Cos[20 u],
Cos[v]}

In[5]:= ParametricPlot3D[BumpySphere[u, v], {u, - π, π},

{v, - π, π}, MaxRecursion → 4,
PlotStyle → {Orange, Specularity[White, 10]}, Axes → None,
Mesh → None, Boxed → False]

Out[5]=

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 3

In[6]:= ParameterizedSurfaceMetric[BumpySphere[u, v], {u, v}]

Out[6]= Cos[u]2 Sin[v]2 + (- Sin[20 u] - Sin[u] Sin[v])2 ,

Cos[u] Cos[v] (- Sin[20 u] - Sin[u] Sin[v]) +
Cos[u] Sin[v] (Cos[v] Sin[u] - Sin[20 v]),
Cos[u] Cos[v] (- Sin[20 u] - Sin[u] Sin[v]) +
Cos[u] Sin[v] (Cos[v] Sin[u] - Sin[20 v]),
Cos[u]2 Cos[v]2 + Sin[v]2 + (Cos[v] Sin[u] - Sin[20 v])2 

Denoting the coordinates by xi , we can then define ds2 := gi j dxi dx j , where the gi j are func-
tions of the coordinates xi ; this definition uses Einstein notation, which will also apply
wherever applicable in the following. From this surprisingly dense description of distance,
we can extract many properties of a given Riemannian manifold, including sectional
curvature, which will be given an explicit formula later. In particular, two-dimensional
manifolds, also called surfaces, carry a value that measures at any given point how far they
are from being flat. This value can be positive, negative or zero. For intuition, we give
examples of each of these types of behavior.
The sphere is the prototypical example of a surface of positive curvature.

In[7]:= ParametricPlot3D[SphereParameterization[u, v],

{u, - π, π}, {v, - π, π}, Axes → None, Boxed → False]

Out[7]=

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4 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

Any convex subspace of Euclidean space has zero curvature everywhere.

In[8]:= ParametricPlot3D[{u, v, 0}, {u, - 10, 10}, {v, - 10, 10},

Boxed → False, Axes → False]

Out[8]=

The monkey saddle is an example of a two-dimensional figure with negative curvature.

In[9]:= Plot3D[x (x ^ 2 - 3 y ^ 2), {x, - 10, 10}, {y, - 10, 10},

Boxed → False, Axes → False]

Out[9]=

Sectional curvature is a locally defined value that gives the curvature of a special type of
two-dimensional subspace at a point, where the two dimensions defining the surface are
input as tangent vectors. Manifolds may have points that admit sections of both negative
and positive curvature simultaneously, as is the case for the Schwarzchild metric discussed
in the section “Applications in Physics.” An important property of sectional curvature is
that on a Riemannian manifold it varies smoothly with respect to both the point in the
manifold being considered and the choice of tangent vectors.

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 5

Sectional curvature is given by

< Ru, v u, v >
K u, v = ,
< u, u > < v, v > - < u, v >2
where u, v ϵ T p M.
In this formula, R represents the purely covariant Riemannian curvature tensor, a function
on tangent vectors that is completely determined by the gi j . Both R and the gi j are treated
more thoroughly in the following section, as well as in [1]. Some immediate properties of
the curvature formula are that K is symmetric in its two entries, K is undefined if the vec-
tors u and v are linearly dependent, and K does not change when either vector is scaled.
Moreover, any two tangent vectors that define the same subspace of the tangent space give
the same value. This is important because curvature should only depend on the embedded
surface itself and not how it was determined.
While we are primarily concerned with Riemannian manifolds, it is worth noting that all
calculations are valid for pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, in which the assumption that the
metric tensor is positive-definite is dropped. This generalization is especially important in
areas such as general relativity, where the metric tensors that represent spacetime have a
different signature than that of traditional Riemannian manifolds. We explore this connec-
tion more in the section “Applications in Physics.”

■ Coordinate Systems and the Representation of the

Metric Tensors
For a differentiable manifold, an atlas is a collection of homeomorphisms, called charts,
from open sets in Euclidean space to the manifold, such that overlapping charts can be made
compatible by a differentiable transition map between them. Via these homeomorphisms,
we can define coordinates in an open set around any point by adopting the coordinates in the
corresponding Euclidean neighborhood. By convention, these coordinates are labelled xi ,
and unless important, we omit the point giving rise to the coordinates. In some cases of
interest, it is possible to adopt a coordinate system that is valid over the whole manifold.
From such a coordinate system, whether local or global, we can define a basis for the tan-
gent space using a coordinate frame [5]. This will be the basis consisting of the partial
derivative operators in each of the coordinate directions, that is, ∂xi . Considering the tan-
gent space as a vector space, this set is sometimes referred to in mathematical physics as
a holonomic basis for the manifold. We use this expression then to define the symmetric
matrix G = gi j  by the following expression for p ∈ M:
∂ ∂
gi j p = g p
∂ xi
, ∂x j
.

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6 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

From here, we define one more tensor of interest for the purposes of calculating curvature.
Using Einstein notation, the Riemannian curvature tensor is
Rabcd = gae Rebcd ,
∂ ∂
Rabcd = ∂ xc
Γabd -
∂ xd
Γabc + Γacs Γsbd - Γads Γsbc .

The various Γ are the Christoffel symbols, for which code is presented in the next section.
In light of these definitions, we recall sectional curvature once again from the introduction
as the following, now considering the special case of the tangent vectors being chosen in
coordinate directions:
Ri ji j
K (∂xi , ∂x j ) = .
∂xi  2 ∂x j  2 -<∂xi , ∂x j >2

The norm in the denominator is the norm of the tangent vector associated to that partial
derivative in the holonomic basis, which is induced by the associated inner product from G.

■ Sectional Curvature
We now create functions to compute these tensors and sectional curvature itself. These
values depend on a set of coordinates and a Riemannian metric tensor, so that will be the
information that serves as the input for these functions. Coordinates should be a list of coor-
dinate names like {x, y, z}, and MetricTensor should be a square symmetric matrix
whose size matches the length of the coordinate list. Some not inconsiderable inspiration for
the first half of this code was taken from Professor Leonard Parker's Mathematica notebook
"Curvature and the Einstein Equation," which is available online as a supplement to [6].
We can now define a function for the Christoffel symbols from the previous section. This
calculation consists of taking partial derivatives of the metric tensor components and one
tensor operation. In Mathematica, the dot product, typically used for vectors and matrices,
is also able to take tensors and contract indices.

In[10]:= Christoffel[coordinates_, MetricTensor_] := Module[

{n = Length[coordinates]},
Simplify[
Inverse[MetricTensor].(
1 / 2 Table[
D[MetricTensor[[s, j]], coordinates[[k]]] +
D[MetricTensor[[s, k]], coordinates[[j]]] -
D[MetricTensor[[j, k]], coordinates[[s]]],
{s, n}, {j, n}, {k, n}]
)
]
]

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 7

We can now use the formulas stated in the second section to define both the covariant and
contravariant forms of the Riemannian curvature tensor.

In[11]:= RiemannContravariant[coordinates_, MetricTensor_] := Module[

{n, c},
n = Length[coordinates];
c = Christoffel[coordinates, MetricTensor];
Simplify @ Table[
D[c[[i, j, l]], coordinates[[k]]] -
D[c[[i, j, k]], coordinates[[l]]] +
(c.c)[[i, k, l, j]] - (c.c)[[i, l, k, j]],
{i, n}, {j, n}, {k, n}, {l, n}
]
]

We perform one more tensor operation using the dot product to transform our partially
contravariant tensor into one that is purely covariant. Both of these will be called at vari-
ous points later.

In[12]:= RiemannCovariant[coordinates_, MetricTensor_] :=

MetricTensor.RiemannContravariant[coordinates,
MetricTensor]

The full function to return the sectional curvatures consists of computing a scaled version
of the covariant Riemannian metric tensor.

In[13]:= SectionalCurvature[coordinates_, MetricTensor_] := Module[

{n, R, listRiemannCovariant, K},
n = Length[coordinates];
R = RiemannCovariant[coordinates, MetricTensor];
listRiemannCovariant = Table[
R[[i, j, k, l]],
{i, n}, {j, n}, {k, n}, {l, n}
];
K[u_, u_] = 0;
K[u_, v_] := Simplify[
listRiemannCovariant[[u, v, u, v]] /
(MetricTensor[[u, u]] × MetricTensor[[v, v]] -
MetricTensor[[u, v]] ^ 2)
] /; u ≠ v;
Table[K[u, v], {u, n}, {v, n}]
]

The output consists of a symmetric matrix with zero diagonal entries representing curvatures
in the coordinate directions. These diagonal values should not be taken literally, as curvature
is undefined given two linearly dependent directions. While this of course does not give all
possible sectional curvatures, one may perform a linear transformation on the basis in order
to obtain a new metric tensor with arbitrary (linearly independent) vectors as basis elements.
From here, the new tensor may be used for computation.

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8
The output consists of a symmetric matrix with Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy
zero diagonal entries representing curvatures
in the coordinate directions. These diagonal values should not be taken literally, as curvature
is undefined given two linearly dependent directions. While this of course does not give all
possible sectional curvatures, one may perform a linear transformation on the basis in order
to obtain a new metric tensor with arbitrary (linearly independent) vectors as basis elements.
From here, the new tensor may be used for computation.
Here is an example with diagonal entries that are functions of the last coordinate.

In[14]:= SectionalCurvature[{x, y, z},

{{F[z], 0, 0}, {0, G[z], 0}, {0, 0, H[z]}}]

F′ [z] G′ [z]
Out[14]= 0, - ,
4 F[z] × G[z] × H[z]
F[z] F′ [z] H′ [z] + H[z] F′ [z]2 - 2 F[z] F′′ [z]
,
4 F[z]2 H[z]2
F′ [z] G′ [z]
- , 0,
4 F[z] × G[z] × H[z]
G[z] G′ [z] H′ [z] + H[z] G′ [z]2 - 2 G[z] G′′ [z]
,
4 G[z]2 H[z]2
F[z] F′ [z] H′ [z] + H[z] F′ [z]2 - 2 F[z] F′′ [z]
 ,
4 F[z]2 H[z]2
G[z] G′ [z] H′ [z] + H[z] G′ [z]2 - 2 G[z] G′′ [z]
, 0
4 G[z]2 H[z]2

Any good computation in mathematics must stand to scrutiny by known cases, so we evalu-
ate our function with the input of hyperbolic 3-space. The two in the exponent should be
imagined as the squaring of the exponential function.

In[15]:= SectionalCurvature[{a, b, c},

{{Exp[- 2 c], 0, 0}, {0, Exp[- 2 c], 0}, {0, 0, 1}}] //
MatrixForm

Out[15]//MatrixForm=
0 -1 -1
-1 0 -1
-1 -1 0

Checking with [7] verifies that this is indeed a global metric tensor for hyperbolic 3-space.
As such, we know that it has constant sectional curvature of - 1 (recall the diagonal entries
do not represent any curvature information).

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 9

■ Applications in Topology
Continuing with the hyperbolic space metric tensor, it is a well-known result in hyperbolic
geometry that one is able to scale these first two dimensions to vary the curvature and pro-
duce a pinched curvature manifold.

In[16]:= pinchedcurvature = {{Exp[- 2 a z], 0, 0}, {0, Exp[- 2 b z], 0},

{0, 0, 1}};

If we allow for new constant coefficients in the exponents for positive real numbers a and
b, then we should see explicit bounds on the curvatures.

In[17]:= SectionalCurvature[{x, y, z}, pinchedcurvature] //

MatrixForm

Out[17]//MatrixForm=
0 - a b - a2
-a b 0 - b2
- a2 - b2 0

In this vein, the Riemannian structure for complex hyperbolic space is similar to the real
case, except for a modification to allow for complex variables.

In[18]:= complexhyperbolic =
(2 z) ^ - 2 {
{4 (z + y ^ 2), - 4 x y, 0, - 2 y},
{- 4 x y, 4 (z + x ^ 2), 0, 2 x},
{0, 0, 1, 0},
{- 2 y, 2 x, 0, 1}
};

In this setting, a formula for the metric tensor valid over the entire manifold is available
from [8], among other places.

In[19]:= SectionalCurvature[{x, y, z, w}, complexhyperbolic ] //

MatrixForm

Out[19]//MatrixForm=
x2 +y2 +4 z 4 y2 +z
0 - 2 2
- -1
x +y +z y2 +z
x2 +y2 +4 z 4 x2 +z
- 0 - -1
x2 +y2 +z x2 +z
4 y2 +z 4 x2 +z
- - 0 -4
y2 +z x2 +z
-1 -1 -4 0

One can verify that, although not constant, the entries in the upper-left block are always
bounded between - 1 and - 4 for positive z. This result agrees with sectional curvature in
complex hyperbolic space, and so serves as an example of sectional curvature computation
where the underlying tensor is not diagonal. A careful review of [8] reminds us that this
metric is only well-defined up to rescaling, which can change the values of the sectional
curvature. What does not change, however, is the ratio of the largest and smallest curvatures,
which are always exactly 4. The introduction in [9] takes Theconsiderable care22to© 2020
Mathematica Journal Wolfram
remind Media, Inc.
us that
definitions change between curvatures in [- 4, - 1], [- 1, - 1 / 4] and even [- 2, - 1 / 2].
10 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

One can verify that, although not constant, the entries in the upper-left block are always
bounded between - 1 and - 4 for positive z. This result agrees with sectional curvature in
complex hyperbolic space, and so serves as an example of sectional curvature computation
where the underlying tensor is not diagonal. A careful review of [8] reminds us that this
metric is only well-defined up to rescaling, which can change the values of the sectional
curvature. What does not change, however, is the ratio of the largest and smallest curvatures,
which are always exactly 4. The introduction in [9] takes considerable care to remind us that
definitions change between curvatures in [- 4, - 1], [- 1, - 1 / 4] and even [- 2, - 1 / 2].

■ Applications in Physics
Perhaps the most interesting applications of differentiable manifolds and curvature to
physics lie in the area of relativity. This discipline uses the idea of a Lorentzian manifold,
which is defined as a manifold equipped with a Lorentzian metric that has signature
(- + + +) instead of the (+ + + +) signature for four-dimensional Riemannian manifolds.
As noted in the introduction, however, this has no impact on the computations of sectional
curvature. Examples of such Lorentzian metrics include the Minkowski flat spacetime
metric; c is the familiar constant speed of light.

In[20]:= flatspacetime = {{c ^ 2, 0, 0, 0}, {0, 1, 0, 0}, {0, 0, 1, 0},

{0, 0, 0, 1}};

Justifying the name of flat spacetime, our curvature calculation guarantees all sectional
curvatures are identically zero.

In[21]:= SectionalCurvature[{x, y, z, t}, flatspacetime] //

MatrixForm

Out[21]//MatrixForm=
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

More generic Lorentzian manifolds may have nonzero curvature. To this end, we examine
the Schwarzschild metric, which describes spacetime outside a spherical mass such that
the gravitational field outside the mass satisfies Einstein's field equations. This most com-
monly is viewed in the context of a black hole and how spacetime behaves nearby. More
details on the following tensor can be found in [10].

In[22]:= SchwarzschildMetric = {
{- (1 - 2 G m / (r c ^ 2)), 0, 0, 0},
{0, 1 / (1 - 2 G m / (r c ^ 2)), 0, 0},
{0, 0, r ^ 2, 0},
{0, 0, 0, r ^ 2 Sin[θ] ^ 2}
};

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 11

In the following, r, ϕ and θ are standard spherical coordinates for three-dimensional space
and t represents time. With this setup, we can calculate the sectional curvature of space-
time for areas outside such a spherical mass.

In[23]:= SectionalCurvature[{t, r, θ, ϕ}, SchwarzschildMetric] //

MatrixForm

Out[23]//MatrixForm=
2Gm Gm Gm
0 - -
c2 r3 c2 r3 c2 r3
2Gm Gm Gm
0 - -
c2 r3 c2 r3 c2 r3
Gm Gm 2Gm
- - 0
c2 r3 c2 r3 c2 r3
Gm Gm 2Gm
- - 0
c2 r3 c2 r3 c2 r3

This result indicates that the sectional curvature is directly proportional to the mass and
inversely proportional to the distance from the object. In particular, there is a singularity
at r = 0, indicating that curvature “blows up” near the center of the mass. Indeed, these
results are in line with Flamm's paraboloid, the graphical representation of a constant-time
equatorial slice of the Schwarzchild metric, whose details can be found in [11].

In[24]:= ParametricPlot3D[{r Cos[t], r Sin[t], ((r - 1)) ^ (1 / 2)},

{r, 1, 10}, {t, 0, 2 Pi}, Boxed → False, Axes → False ]

Out[24]=

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12 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

■ Ricci Curvature
In fact, the calculations we have done already allow us to compute one further object of
interest for a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian manifold: the Ricci curvature. The Ricci
curvature is a tensor that contracts the curvature tensor and is computable when one has the
contravariant Riemannian curvature tensor. Below we use a built-in function for tensors to
contract the first and third indices of the contravariant Riemannian curvature tensor to obtain
a matrix containing condensed curvature information (see [12] for more information).

In[25]:= RicciCurvature[coordinates_, MetricTensor_] :=

Simplify @ TensorContract[
RiemannContravariant[coordinates, MetricTensor],
{{1, 3}}]

The values 1 and 3 above refer to the dimensions we are contracting. In general, the corre-
sponding indices must vary over sets of the same size; here all dimensions have indices
that vary over a set whose size is the number of coordinates. We compute the Ricci curva-
ture for some of the previous examples.

In[26]:= RicciCurvature[{x, y, z}, pinchedcurvature] // MatrixForm

Out[26]//MatrixForm=
- a (a + b) ⅇ-2 a z 0 0
-2 b z
0 - b (a + b) ⅇ 0
0 0 - a2 - b2

In[27]:= RicciCurvature[{x, y, z, w}, complexhyperbolic] //

MatrixForm

Out[27]//MatrixForm=
6 y2 +z 6xy 3y
- 0
z2 z2 z2
6xy 6 x2 +z 3x
- 0 -
z2 z2 z2
3
0 0 - 0
2 z2
3y 3x 3
- 0 -
z2 z2 2 z2

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 13

In[28]:= RicciCurvature[{t, r, θ, ϕ}, SchwarzschildMetric] //

MatrixForm

Out[28]//MatrixForm=
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

The fact that the Ricci curvature vanishes for the above solution to the Einstein field
equation is a consequence of its types of symmetries. In general, the Ricci curvature for
other solutions is nonzero. Notice for the pinchedcurvature example (and the
SchwarzschildMetric, trivially), all information from the Ricci tensor is con-
tained in the diagonal elements. This is always the case for a diagonal metric tensor
[12]. As such, we may sometimes be interested only in these values, so we take the diag-
onal in such a case.

In[29]:= Diagonal @ RicciCurvature[{u, v},

ParameterizedSurfaceMetric[SphereParameterization[u, v],
{u, v}]]

Out[29]= Sin[v]2 , 1

In[30]:= Diagonal @ RicciCurvature[{x, y, z}, pinchedcurvature]

Out[30]= - a (a + b) ⅇ-2 a z , - b (a + b) ⅇ-2 b z , - a2 - b2 

■ Acknowledgments
The supervising author would like to thank Dr. Nicolas Robles for suggesting the submis-
sion of this article to The Mathematica Journal. We would also like to thank Leonard
Parker, who authored the notebook file available at [6], which greatly illuminated some of
the calculations. We are also very grateful to the referee and especially the editor, whose
contributions have made this article much more accurate, legible and efficient.

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14 Elliott Fairchild, Francis Owen and Brendan Burns Healy

■ References
[1] M. do Carmo, Differential Geometry of Curves & Surfaces, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications,
Inc., 2018.
[2] J. M. Lee, Introduction to Smooth Manifolds, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 218, New York:
Springer, 2003.
[3] C. Stover and E. W. Weisstein, “Metric Tensor” from MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource.
mathworld.wolfram.com/MetricTensor.html.
[4] “ParametricPlot3D,” ParametricPlot3D from Wolfram Language & System Documentation
Center—A Wolfram Web Resource.
reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ParametricPlot3D.html.
[5] F. Catoni, D. Boccaletti, R. Cannata, V. Catoni, E. Nichelatti and P. Zampetti, The Mathemat-
ics of Minkowski Space-Time, Frontiers in Mathematics, Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2008.
[6] J. B. Hartle, Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein’s General Relativity, San Francisco: Addison-
Wesley, 2003. web.physics.ucsb.edu/~gravitybook/math/curvature.pdf.
[7] J. G. Ratcliffe, Foundations of Hyperbolic Manifolds, 2nd ed., Graduate Texts in Mathemat-
ics, 149, New York: Springer, 2006.
[8] J. Parker, “Notes on Complex Hyperbolic Geometry” (Jan 10, 2020).
maths.dur.ac.uk/~dma0jrp/img/NCHG.pdf.
[9] W. M. Goldman, Complex Hyperbolic Geometry, Oxford Mathematical Monographs, Oxford
Science Publications, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
[10] R. Adler, M. Bazin and M. Schiffer, Introduction to General Relativity, New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1965.
[11] R. T. Eufrasio, N. A. Mecholsky and L. Resca, “Curved Space, Curved Time, and Curved
Space-Time in Schwarzschild Geodetic Geometry,” General Relativity and Gravitation,
50(159), 2018. doi:10.1007/s10714-018-2481-2.
[12] L. A. Sidorov, “Ricci Tensor,” Encyclopedia of Mathematics (M. Hazewinkel, ed.), Nether-
lands: Springer, 1990. www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Ricci_tensor.

E. Fairchild, F. Owen and B. Burns Healy, “Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds,” The Mathematica
Journal, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3888/tmj.22–1.

About the Authors

Elliott Fairchild is a high-school student at Cedarburg High School. He particularly enjoys

problems in analysis, and is always looking for more research opportunities.
Francis Owen is an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
His major is Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and he is eager to find new
programming opportunities.
Brendan Burns Healy is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee. Though a geometric group theorist and low-dimensional topologist by train-
ing, he also enjoys problems of computation and coding.

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Sectional Curvature in Riemannian Manifolds 15

Elliott Fairchild
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
3200 N. Cramer St.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
[email protected]
Francis Owen
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
3200 N. Cramer St.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
Brendan Burns Healy, PhD
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
3200 N. Cramer St.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
www.burnshealy.com

The Mathematica Journal 22 © 2020 Wolfram Media, Inc.