In the 1920s, the French mathematician Élie Cartan formulated Einstein's theory in the language of bundles and connections, a generalization of Riemannian geometry to which Cartan made important contributions. The so-called Einstein–Cartan theory of gravity not only reformulated but also generalized general relativity, and allowed spacetimes with torsion as well as curvature. In Cartan's geometry of bundles, the concept of parallel transport is more fundamental than that of distance, the centerpiece of Riemannian geometry. A similar conceptual shift occurs between the invariant interval of Einstein's general relativity and the parallel transport of Einstein–Cartan theory.