system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
The tensor is property of many fundamental forces in QED, but it is not explained in readily graspable terms... 

Does anyone here have a good way to explain what a tensor is, what the different ranks and classes of tensors in normal terms?

Thanks in advance.
gpt
A tensor is basically the general term for vectors and matrices. A tensor has a rank which is the number of dimensions it has: a rank zero tensor is a scalar (number), a rank one tensor is a vector, a rank two tensor is a matrix, and higher rank tensors don't have fancy names.

Generally in physics, each row or column of a tensor corresponds to a specific dimension in space. For example, the velocity gradient tensor describes how the x component of the velocity changes in the x direction, how it changes in the y direction, how the y component changes in the x direction, and how the y component changes in the y direction.