general relativity - What is the metric tensor for?

I am wondering how to use the metric tensor, in practice? I read the book and done the exercises in A student's guide to vectors and tensors by Dan Fleisch. The concept of a tensor and their applications are well defined.

In that book, is explained how to get the metric tensor for coordinate system transformation, such as from spherical coordinates to ordinary Cartesian coordinates or even from cylindrical coordinates to Cartesian coordinates; which are easy to obtain, given enough practice. But what do such metric tensors mean (in practice), how does one use such a tensor in an actual math/physics problem?

Answer

The metric measures lengths in various directions, and also angles between various directions. For example if $\vec{e}_{(1)}$ is the basis vector in the $x^1$-direction, it will have length (squared) given by $$ \lVert \vec{e}_{(1)} \rVert^2 = g(\vec{e}_{(1)}, \vec{e}_{(1)}) = g_{11}. $$ If we also have the basis vector $\vec{e}_{(2)}$ in the $x^2$-direction, then the angle $\theta$ between these vectors obeys $$ \lVert \vec{e}_{(1)} \rVert \cdot \lVert \vec{e}_{(2)} \rVert \cos\theta = \vec{e}_{(1)} \cdot \vec{e}_{(2)} = g(\vec{e}_{(1)}, \vec{e}_{(2)}) = g_{12}. $$

So far we haven't made any mention of transforming coordinates. Now coordinate transformations are something we'd like to be able to do, and the rule for the metric (or indeed any rank-(0,2) tensor) is $$ g_{ij} = \sum_{\hat{\imath},\hat{\jmath}} \frac{\partial x^\hat{\imath}}{\partial x^i} \frac{\partial x^\hat{\jmath}}{\partial x^j} g_{\hat{\imath}\hat{\jmath}}. \qquad \text{(all coordinate transformations)} $$ If the hatted coordinate system is normal Euclidean space with normal Cartesian coordinates, $g_{\hat{\imath}\hat{\jmath}} = \delta_{\hat{\imath}\hat{\jmath}}$ and we are left with $$ g_{ij} = \sum_{\hat{\imath}} \frac{\partial x^\hat{\imath}}{\partial x^i} \frac{\partial x^\hat{\imath}}{\partial x^j}. \qquad \text{(Cartesian hatted coordinates only)} $$ But this is just a rule for transforming the metric from one coordinate system to another. The real use of the metric is to calculate lengths and angles in a particular coordinate system (as above), or to describe the local geometry of space(time) in a concise, abstract way (in which case you don't even find its components in any particular coordinate system).