# Introduction to Linear Algebra

A free online introduction to Linear Algebra text. The sections appear to cover all of the expected topics, in the expected order.While the treatments appear fairly standard, there is relatively little attention given to Vector Spaces (20 pages) and Orthogonality and Least-Squares (20 pages), compared with Solving Linear Systems (70 pages).

Identifier:
http://www.calvin.edu/~scofield/courses/m231/S14/laNotes.pdf
Subject:
Rating:
Creator(s):
Thomas L. Scofield
Cataloger:
David Strong
Publisher:
Thomas L. Scofield
Rights:
Thomas L. Scofield

## Comments

### complete textbook for a typical linear algebra course (121 pgs)

This 121-page PDF file contains a complete textbook for a typical linear algebra course; exercises and selected answers are included. In addition to the mathematics, the text contains explicit (and quite good, to be honest) instructions for using MATLAB. This text would be better, in my opinion, if it included more figures. There is virtually no mention of "proofs" until the beginning of Chapter 3 (p. 91); this text would be appropriate only for coruses that do not emphasize proofs. The biggest omission that I noted is the lack of copyright and distribution parameters.

### (incomplete) lecture notes for a linear algebra course

These are lecture notes for the beginning of a linear algebra course. It is clearly incomplete. In Chapter 2 on Vector Spaces there are no examples which are not subspaces of $\mathbf{R}^n$, but in Chapter 3 on Inner Product Spaces, he suddenly discusses an example using the space of continuous functions and this is the only example which is not on $\mathbf{R}^n$.