Name: Anonymous 2008-04-02 22:38
Can anyone give me a somewhat simplistic explanation of 1-forms? For some reason I'm really stuck on this, I understand that they're a linear transformation mapping point and a vector to R. (I'm guessing they actually map to all of C but for sake of learning I'd appreciate it simplified as my understanding of complex analysis is virtually nonexistant at this point in time.) I don't even understand their purpose, except that a differential is a type of 1-form. The wikipedia article was a bit over my head & the wolfram article wasn't much help either.