Vectors and matrices

The MAA is pleased to re-issue the early Carus Mathematical Monographs in ebook and print-on-demand formats. Readers with an interest in the history of the undergraduate curriculum or the history of a particular field will be rewarded by study of these very clear and approachable little volumes. In 1943 a course in linear algebra did not yet exist as a standard part of the undergraduate curriculum. It would be another twenty years before that would become common. It is, however, easy to identify the defining features of that course in this volume. Start with the idea of solving linear systems; change the point of view to that of transformations on vector spaces; recognize similarity as an essential classifying principle; and catalogue the canonical forms (Jordan normal form) of the transformations. All of this is here but with a decided, old-fashioned, algebraic accent - there is only one figure in the entire text Title page Introduction Contents I. Systems of linear equations II. Vector spaces III. Determinants IV. Matric polynomials V. Union and intersection VI. The rational canonical form VII. Elementary divisors VIII. Orthogonal transformations IX. Endomorphisms Bibliography Index of terms Problems