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The notion (rank-2) "tensor" appears in many different parts of physics, e.g. stress tensor, moment of inertia tensor, etc.

I know mathematically a tensor can be represented by a $3 \times 3$ matrix. But I can't grasp its geometrical picture — unlike scalar (a number) and vector (an arrow with direction and magnitude) which I can easily see what's going on.

How to visualize a tensor?

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    Coordinate frame?2010-07-26
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    @Jon: What? [ ](http://.com)2010-07-26
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    If the matrix is not singular, you could think of the vectors as making up an oriented coordinate frames. Although I don't know if they are orthogonal, so the you would have to adjust the picture.2010-07-26
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    Or parallelepipeds, which is another way to think of 3x3 matrix. Not sure if visualization helps with the tensor though...2010-07-26

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