Customer Reviews

Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course (8th Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a fabulous resource... explains things in as clear a way as Linear Algebra can be. If you want deeper understanding, many concepts are described in more depth, and most proofs are given in detail. It's not filled with cartoons and useless pictures like some textbooks, but clear, concise explanations of what turns out to be an interesting and fairly simple area of mathematics.

This isn't the easiest linear text I've scene. This also isn't the hardest. The book has a ton of applications, which is good if you're an applied math, engineering, or science major. If your interests are in pure math the applications are still a nice little side note. The book's explanations are explained as clearly as possible without giving up any rigor. At first I didn't like the book, but after looking at several other linear textbooks I realized that these authors did a good job of explaining a difficult topic.

I like the fact that the book is brief at getting to the point, i hate maths texts that try to teach you maths with words and go on and on with their explainations and draw fancy pictures to help you but theyre really wasting your time.
Other than that its not the greatest text, but it gets the job done.

Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are pretty well done up to a point. The explanations, examples, and problems are well written and can be followed without cross referencing other texts and pages on the web. You will learn the basics here without too much of a fuss.

Unfortunately, the book has a nasty habit of circular proofs. The author leaves out vital parts of the explanation in the text, referencing other parts of the text, which reference other parts of the text, and then ask you to solve the underlying proof yourself without explaining the fundamentals at all. The book also references FORWARD into chapters you have not gotten to yet in order to solve current proofs. This is not at all helpful. If your professor requires you to solve any of the proofs in any section you will be lost. Good luck.

Chapter 6 is an all-around disaster. Unless you have seen the material before, you will not get it here. The explanation at the beginning of the chapter cannot really be called an explanation. It is more of an obfuscation. The notation is not explained, it is assumed you know it or can figure it out on your own. The proofs in this chapter are a maze of unexplained concepts and hidden information.

Chapters 8 and 10 are more like the first chapters in usability, but the proofs are just as jumbled.

Intervening chapters from the ones I have described are applications of the material from previous chapters and are optional.

Buy another book (or two or three) as a supplement. You will need it.

This book sucks at explaining, half the examples in this book just refer you to other examples/exercises that you have to complete yourself. HOW DOES THIS HELP IF YOU HAVE TO DO THE PROBLEM YOURSELF??!? Half the practice problems are theoretical questions that do not help you in understanding the concept whatsoever. The only thing it does is confuse and frustrate you more. Whoever uses this textbook to teach is obviously incompetent and/or has not looked it over at all.

I just realized that my review on this order was terribly written and meant for the Gods of Shipping, not for the item itself. This book was actually pretty good and I enjoyed Linear Algebra. As far as college texts go, I was impressed. Some previous mathematical texts would make me have to wait for the instructor or do further research in order to do the homework. This one didn't leave much to the imagination and pretty easy material.