The course is over! Final grades have been submitted to MySlice. Thanks to everyone for a great semester, and enjoy your break.

Basics

Instructor

Prof. Graham Leuschke

Contact

gjleusch@math.syr.edu

Time & Place

TR 3:30—4:50, Carnegie 316

Office Hours

MW 2—4, TF 9:30—11; by appointment; and any time my door is open (206C Carnegie)

Text

Linear Algebra Done Right, 2nd ed., Sheldon Axler, Springer 1997

Important documents

course syllabus Δ

Announcements

• Exam III will be in class on Thursday 3 December (changed!). It will cover all of Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 up through the Parallelogram Equality.
• The Final Exam time is incorrect in the syllabus. The correct time is 10:15am-12:15pm on Friday, December 18. It will be in Carn 316 (which I think is the usual room).

Problem Sets

• Homework 01 Δ (Note typo in #3; should read “…subspace of P(F).”)
• comments on HW01 Δ
• Homework 02 Δ (Note typo in #3, n should be m)
• Homework 03 Δ
• Homework 04 Δ
• Homework 05 Δ
• Homework 06 Δ
• Homework 07 Δ
• Homework 08 Δ
• Homework 09 Δ
• Homework 10 Δ

It has been said that ‘the human mind has never invented a labor-saving machine equal to algebra.’ If this be true, it is but natural and proper that an age like our own, characterized by the multiplication of labor-saving machinery, should be distinguished by the unexampled development of this most refined and most beautiful of machines.

Josiah Willard Gibbs, 1887

Links

• The nuts and bolts of writing mathematics (some really good advice here)
• history and motivation of determinants (which we will not be studying)
• James Joseph Sylvester (1814–1897) first coined the term matrix: “a rectangular array of terms out of which different systems of determinants may be engendered, as from the womb of a common parent.” (Matrix is the Latin word for womb. Sylvester was also responsible for the mathematical terms syzygy, meicatecticizant, and tamisage. His articles are still great fun to read.) Here’s some more on Sylvester.
• A Brief History of Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory from Marie Vitulli at Oregon
• The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art (Wikipedia)