This is a carefully written, clear account of elementary linear algebra with good problems and interesting historical sidelights. It will be used for collateral reading and primary reference by many students. The text, written by a very well-known author, includes many exercises and good examples.

Klappentext

The original version of this book, handed out to my students in weekly in­ stallments, had a certain rugged charm. Now that it is dressed up as a Springer UTM volume, I feel very much like Alfred Dolittle at Eliza's wedding. I hope the reader will still sense the presence of a young lecturer, enthusiastically urging his audience to enjoy linear algebra. The book is structured in various ways. For example, you will find a test in each chapter; you may consider the material up to the test as basic and the material following the test as supplemental. In principle, it should be possible to go from the test directly to the basic material of the next chapter. Since I had a mixed audience of mathematics and physics students, I tried to give each group some special attention, which in the book results in certain sections being marked· "for physicists" or "for mathematicians. " Another structural feature of the text is its division into laconic main text, put in boxes, and more talkative unboxed side text. If you follow just the main text, jumping from box to box, you will find that it makes coherent reading, a real "book within the book," presenting all that I want to teach.

Inhalt

1. Sets and Maps.- 1.1 Sets.- 1.2 Maps.- 1.3 Test.- 1.4 Remarks on the Literature.- 1.5 Exercises.- 2. Vector Spaces.- 2.1 Real Vector Spaces.- 2.2 Complex Numbers and Complex Vector Spaces.- 2.3 Vector Subspaces.- 2.4 Test.- 2.5 Fields.- 2.6 What Are Vectors?.- 2.7 Complex Numbers 400 Years Ago.- 2.8 Remarks on the Literature.- 2.9 Exercises.- 3. Dimension.- 3.1 Linear Independence.- 3.2 The Concept of Dimension.- 3.3 Test.- 3.4 Proof of the Basis Extension Theorem and the Exchange Lemma.- 3.5 The Vector Product.- 3.6 The Steinitz Exchange Theorem.- 3.7 Exercises.- 4. Linear Maps.- 4.1 Linear Maps.- 4.2 Matrices.- 4.3 Test.- 4.4 Quotient Spaces.- 4.5 Rotations and Reflections in the Plane.- 4.6 Historical Aside.- 4.7 Exercises.- 5. Matrix Calculus.- 5.1 Multiplication.- 5.2 The Rank of a Matrix.- 5.3 Elementary Transformations.- 5.4 Test.- 5.5 How Does One Invert a Matrix?.- 5.6 Rotations and Reflections (continued).- 5.7 Historical Aside.- 5.8 Exercises.- 6. Determinants.- 6.1 Determinants.- 6.2 Determination of Determinants.- 6.3 The Determinant of the Transposed Matrix.- 6.4 Determinantal Formula for the Inverse Matrix.- 6.5 Determinants and Matrix Products.- 6.6 Test.- 6.7 Determinant of an Endomorphism.- 6.8 The Leibniz Formula.- 6.9 Historical Aside.- 6.10 Exercises.- 7. Systems of Linear Equations.- 7.1 Systems of Linear Equations.- 7.2 Cramer's Rule.- 7.3 Gaussian Elimination.- 7.4 Test.- 7.5 More on Systems of Linear Equations.- 7.6 Captured on Camera!.- 7.7 Historical Aside.- 7.8 Remarks on the Literature.- 7.9 Exercises.- 8. Euclidean Vector Spaces.- 8.1 Inner Products.- 8.2 Orthogonal Vectors.- 8.3 Orthogonal Maps.- 8.4 Groups.- 8.5 Test.- 8.6 Remarks on the Literature.- 8.7 Exercises.- 9. Eigenvalues.- 9.1 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors.- 9.2 TheCharacteristic Polynomial.- 9.3 Test.- 9.4 Polynomials.- 9.5 Exercises.- 10. The Principal Axes Transformation.- 10.1 Self-Adjoint Endomorphisms.- 10.2 Symmetric Matrices.- 10.3 The Principal Axes Transformation for Self-Adjoint Endomorphisms.- 10.4 Test.- 10.5 Exercises.- 11. Classification of Matrices.- 11.1 What Is Meant by Classification?.- 11.2 The Rank Theorem.- 11.3 The Jordan Normal Form.- 11.4 More on the Principal Axes Transformation.- 11.5 The Sylvester Inertia Theorem.- 11.6 Test.- 11.7 Exercises.- 12. Answers to the Tests.- References.