Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Class notes., September 3, 2003
By A Customer
I was one of Terry Lawson's mathematics students at Tulane (where this book is known to be burned or disposed of in creative ways regularly by students at semester's end), albeit not in his Linear Algebra class. (Professor Kalka taught my linear algebra class and, yes, we did use this book.) Hence, I was able to get a bit of perspective on this text from the author.Linear Algebra is the result of a compromise. At Tulane, only one course in undergraduate linear algebra is offered. The mathematicians and quantum physicists thus have to take the same course as the engineers. This necessitated more focus on computation and manipulation of matrices than in a traditional class for mathematicians, and more focus on "real" linear algebra than in a typical engineering class. No text existed at the time which bridged the math/engineering gap; Lawson's class was taught from xeroxed notes until they were published it book form. In my opinion, this is a failed compromise. The mathematical content is obscured by all of the matrices and worked examples. The tensor product and most higher geometrical algebra is omitted. Many pages are devoted to circuits, yet none are given over to the basic formalism of quantum mechanics and so strong is the emphasis on matrices that little space is devoted to the manipulation of general linear operators. Additionally, it doesn't seem like the book was intended to be read--there is no flow, and Lawson gives no sense of what is important or why; theorems are given, proved, and then barely discussed. However, it does have its strong points. Perhaps in order to make it accessible to first or second year engineering students who couldn't care less, the math is written at such an elementary level that, when used as a reference, this book has a clarifying effect. Additionally, the chapter on digraph theory and the Leontief input-output method was interesting and clearly written. Perhaps the strongest aspect of this book is the MATLAB examples book written to accompany it; the exercises were most enlightening. Overall, this book is a dud--class notes in overglorified form--but you may find a used copy a handy thing to keep on the bookshelf.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In defense of this book, April 25, 2006
The number of people dissing this book is absurd. This is a great book, at once useful and rigorous, both notation-wise and in terms of proofs. Not only that, notorious institutions use or have used this book.
A fine blend of theory and practice, has proves that resemble those in more theoretical books (and not even as much as a Mathematics student would want), and at the same time uses matrices throughout. Has several real-world applications and a wealth of exercises. But for some students, for some courses, judging from the reactions, it seems to go way over their heads. The author doesn't baby you into "believing" the theorems. I agree with a reader that this book is compromise, but IMHO a good one. The lot of Linear Algebra books can usually be divided into two heaps, one abstract and algebra-oriented, where matrices are just a special case, and another one that is almost matrix-only throughout, usually of more use to engineers and other applied fields. This book tries to bridge that (since there isn't really a "divide"). Some colleges can't afford to cater to all the different needs students have, and end up just lumping the students together in a class. I believe this book is a welcome addition to those students that want a matrix approach, and yet would appreciate a more mature and abstract outlook.
The book, however, does suffer from dense typographical layout. It could use side notes to ease students into some topics or to "translate" notation, and a more relaxed spacing, and there could be more illustrations (where they apply). In short, it needs a makeover. Maybe something in what the Germans call the "American textbook style." Something that screams: "HEY, YO, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS POINT!", because it looks as if there's a substantial percentage of students that won't get it just by solely reading the text.
In order to read this book, you must accustom yourself to a more rigorous notation than the other books (e.g., working with Sigma notation for matrices), which in itself is something one gains from using it; and you also should have taken a decent course in Analytic Geometry. I said course, not something meddled with your Calculus class.
There are nice exercises to be resolved using something like Matlab (or the open source Scilab from INRIA), for instance, regarding applications in graph theory, with "huge" 9x9 matrices.
This book is an intellectually honest endeavor that tries to keep itself afloat the 1 billion books of Linear Algebra for College students that have poor Mathematics.
It's not the best book in the world (haven't found it yet), but it's neither one of the worst, as some responses here will lead you to believe. There should be more books like this. Blame your education (or lack thereof), not the author.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible for Introduction To Linear Algebra, June 29, 2000
By A Customer
I found this book to be poorly written and inferior to just about every college-level math textbook I've seen thus far. Definitions, theorems and other concepts are poorly distinguished from plain text. The book also lacks detailed examples that are relevant to the exercises presented.Another potential frustration is that it uses completely different notation from other linear algebra text commonly used. Furthermore, the notation itself poorly explained. Essentially, if one is already very familiar with the subject this book may act as a decent, concise, reference. But as a learning tool it fails.
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