Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Linear Algebra

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is an incredible value! It covers all major topics in the field of linear algebra, in fact, many more topics than some more expensive texts. This book has many theorems with proofs as well as example problems and applications. My only complaints about this book are that the coverage of theory is a bit terse, and the proofs to many of the theorems are found in the exercises section at the end of the chapter, rather than immediately after the theorem. The terseness means that, without prior exposure to linear algebra, it would be a bit difficult to teach yourself strictly from this book. But with a little bit of background, this book should be no trouble at all. A "real" textbook would get a lower rating for these types of complaints, but since this book costs less than $13, there is no reason not to get it.

i'm currently taking linear algebra from one of the authors of this book. the first day of class the instructor passed out a corrections sheet for the book. even with the corrections sheet, i found many wrong answers in the answer sections.

the pros
- low cost compared to a normal textbook
- easy to understand explanations
- concise
- lots of problems

the cons
- many, many wrong answers in the answer key means that you'll spend a lot of time checking your math with a calculator.

I have learned more about Linear Algebra from this single book than all my other assorted (and fairly expensive!) texbooks combined; and, for that matter, more than my college class on the subject too. I'm now studying Differential Geometry and I always have this book nearby (in addition to two other Shaum's Outlines: that of Vector Analysis and Differential Geometry). Every textbook has something to offer - at least I usually give them the benefit of the doubt ;-). But for gaining a "working knowledge" of abstract mathematical concepts, there's nothing so enlightening than studying the details of problem solving performed with delightful clarity by an expert in the field. In this book you can become the apprentice to Seymour Lipschutz as he reveals the mysteries that often form clouds in the minds of students of Linear Algebra. Frequently, when working in this text, I would suddenly understand something that seemed so complex or obscure in my other LA texts. Actually, I could then see what those other texts were attempting to convey but because of their particular styles, they were just a bit "pedagogically challenged" :-)

Anyway, for me, this book is worth more than any pricey textbook on the subject. Just buy it and use it! You'll begin to see how cool Linear Algebra really is. Beware - mathematics at this level and beyond can be very addictive!

DH

This Schaum's outline is particularly good for upper level undergraduate students that are learning about applied linear algebra. If you are a student of pure mathematics, or a graduate student taking numerical linear algebra this is probably not the book for you. The book excels particularly at students trying to learn techniques that will help them solve the kind of linear algebra problems that you run into when learning computer graphics programming techniques - dot products, cross products, the intersection of two planes, the equation of a line perpendicular to a plane, the equation of a plane given two lines that form a plane, etc. The book starts at the beginning equating vectors with matrices. It then goes on to show the reader the algebra of matrices, including how to know if a matrix is invertible and what it means if it is not. It also covers solution of linear systems of equations, determinants, a little about LU decomposition, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors. Throughout the book the geometric implications of operations are stressed. The one negative point of this book is that there are a moderate number of typos. Many are in places where it is obvious what is meant, but some are in the solutions to the solved problems and could cause problems for a novice to the subject.
For graduate students looking for a Schaum's outline that is more about large systems of matrices and the techniques and algorithms that are used on them, I suggest you look at "Schaum's Outline of Matrix Operations" by Bronson.

First of all I would like to clarify that there is one more book in schaum's series on linear algebra by one of these authors and is called '3000 solved problems in linear algebra'. Dont get confused, I havent read that book.

This book is an excellent book for both theory and problems. It has numerous solved examples ...and moreover the examples are very cleverly chosen. After this you have hell lot of problems of varied difficulties to test yourself. The best point is that hints are given for some important and difficult problems!

Only trouble I got during my undergraduate was that I found that this book was a bit to elementry for a bit advanced topics like matrix diagonalization and other things. For that one has to get some other advanced book ....like that by Hoffman.

Second deficiency is, probably because this book intends to be mainly a problem book, it doesnt introduce the student to dazling applications (!) of linear algebra ... linear algebra is an extremely nice portion of mathematics and it has equally amazing applications. I feel in undergraduate courses student should get an exposure of its applications also. The best example of that being the Quantum Mechanics. So some science/math students might go for a good quantum mechanics book after going through this excellent problems book. (one on Heisenberg's apporach and not Schroodinger's) Best of Luck Mukul

The book is LOADED with examples, and has an excellent index. It supplies the examples that many texts leave out to make way for the theory. I bet that you will find more than one answer to a homework problem in this volume if you are taking either Grad or Undergrad Linear Algebra. It really helps you to find detailed information and solve specific problems.

I've found the Schaum's Outlines to be extremely helpful in my math and science related college courses. This was no exception. Think of it as a kind of Cliff's Notes if you will. It gives a brief and easily understandable explanation of the main subjects while also providing many common solved examples and shows step by step the process of solution (thereby rectifying a common failing in many texts). It then gives a large number of problems for individual practice. I highly recommend the Schaum's Outlines and in particular any which are written by Dr. Seymour Lipschutz.

Regrettably I can only give a partial review of this book. From some of the other reviews, it looks like this may in fact be a decent text, but the number of errors I encountered in the answers to the first set of problems was so annoying that I decided not to continue using this book. By the third addition I would expect most errors to have been corrected, but that is not the case here. The errors I ran across appear to be mostly typos, and I can understand a book having some typos, but to have so many in the first set of problems was enough to make me look for another text. Another reviewer mentioned that the errors were obvious. True, they were, but it was still annoying and a waste of time to have to deal with. Also, the errors were obvious in the first chapter because it was all review material, but what about later chapters when the material would not be a review? It just wasn't something I was willing to risk. I've given the book a neutral three star rating since I can't thoroughly review it, but I'll let you decide if it's worth it to give the book a chance.

After reading the first chapter I found 6 errors within the first 14 pages. These are simple equation errors. For example, page 6, the distance equation has a1-b1 and it should be an-bn. These Phd's should have had a student(may be several) review their work for the simple errors.

This work has excellent coverage of matrix addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division including the inverse matrix.
In addition, there are many examples of determinants. There is
good coverage of vectors, eigenvalues/eigenvectors and inner
product spaces. The text has a good balance between theory and
practice. It is helpful for all major constituencies i.e.
math majors, industrial engineers, general engineering,
econometricians and many other users in the scientific arena.