Customer Reviews

Linear Algebra with Applications (7th Edition)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Simply put, this is not the book that should be a bridge to upper-level undergraduate mathematics (ie. algebra and analysis), which is what the purpose of the book is at my university. The author obviously assumes knowledge of basic set theory and proof techniques in the exercises, with no appendix for reference, and most students have not been acquainted with either only having had three elementary computational calculus courses. The proofs of the theorems are rather dull and Leon really fails to give any motivation as to why it might be true. Before my class began, I used it for self-study, and really felt like I could have gotten a better treatment for a different book (which I did later on). The writing in the book is not clear or concise either, I might add. The saving grace of this book is that its exercise section is vast and contains some interesting problems (but the most interesting really require knowledge of how to construct proofs and set theory). It's just really not a great book to prepare anyone for Algebra or Analysis.

For a better treatment, see Brown's Matrices and Vector Spaces.

Background: I am an Aerospace Engineering undergraduate student with a strong foundation in math.

Review: To be honest, I was looking forward to giving this book 1 star when I was done with it. However, after reviewing what I learned, I found this book isn't as bad as I first thought. First of all, this is not a good book for beginners or self-teachers. It skips over too many steps when discussing some topics. Second, the textbook is written in a very dry and dull manner. This is true of many math books, of course. While this doesn't exactly make a math textbook useless, it works against keeping the reader's interest. Finally, it's layout isn't exactly friendly. Important details tend to blend in with the rest of the text. In my opinion, the important points should stand out.

So, with those points having been made, I feel Leon's Linear Algebra book is more suited for an intermediate class. It definitely wasn't worth the money (what textbooks are?). If you'd like a good beginner or self-teaching book, check out Poole's book instead.

This book is only good if you know group theory, and have taken a math level 300 class that teaches you how to proof. If you dont know how to proof, then your screwed. This book sucks for intro to Linear Algebra for student who do not know hot to prove. A better book for an Intro to linear is Intro to Linear with Larson 6E.

Why can't he just include a couple well explained examples for the ideas presented in the book? The sections are short and the very few examples skip multiple steps so I was left wondering how he got from here to there. Text is extremely dry, it's one proof after another and the definition for different ideas isn't clearly illustrated, just written in a bunch of gobbledygook that you have to decrypt like a foreign language. Even my professor admitted he didn't understand where Leon was going with one section and explained it to me in about 2 minutes that made total sense. A big waste of time, seems Leon wants to make everything as vague and hard to understand as possible.

This book is poor at showing examples with complete explanations. They skip too many steps in the process and leave you wondering how they got to the final answer. I don't have experience with other books on this topic, but I would assume that there are better ones out there.

Had to use this textbook for an intro-level linear algebra class. Totally incomprehensible. Strange math jargons came out of nowhere at the beginning of the chapter without a proper introduction. Lack proofs and explanation how certain methods of computation were made. Emphasizes on applications that don't make sense. Unless you're an engineer, I would not recommend this textbook to beginners who are just starting out linear algebra.

Not bad so far. I like how it gets to the point and doesn't overindulge the reader with extra information.

I found this book very difficult to follow along without a teacher to explain. Little or no examples. Book is full of proofs. This would be a perfect book for a person to brush up on there skills and review the material.

The book arrived in a timely manner and the condition was just as described. Very satisfied!