Ricci

Ricci is a surname of Italian origin and is also found in various regions influenced by Italian culture. It derives from riccio, meaning hedgehog or curly, and is common among Italian families and in areas with Italian heritage. The name appears across many fields, including science, arts, sports, and business, often reflecting Italian lineage.

In mathematics and physics, Ricci is notably associated with Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, an Italian mathematician who, together with Tullio Levi-Civita, developed the Ricci calculus and formulated the concept now known as the Ricci tensor. The Ricci tensor is a contraction of the Riemann curvature tensor and is central to differential geometry and general relativity. The Ricci scalar, obtained by contracting the Ricci tensor, summarizes curvature in a geometric sense.

The term Ricci also appears in geometry through Ricci flow, a process introduced by Richard S. Hamilton in the 1980s that deforms a manifold’s metric in proportion to its Ricci curvature. Ricci flow has played a crucial role in geometric analysis and was instrumental in Grigori Perelman’s work on the Poincaré conjecture.

Notable individuals with the surname include Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, whose work laid foundational tools for modern differential geometry, and Nina Ricci, a French fashion designer who founded the fashion house Nina Ricci. Beyond these figures, Ricci remains a common Italian surname carried by many people in various professions around the world.