Mostly there are two themes in this collection of short hand-outs.
First, that rather than think of an m by n
matrix as a doubly-indexed array, it is often more enlightening
to think of it as a n-tuple of columns (which are, of course, m-vectors)
or an m-tuple of rows.
And secondly, that once one understands the method of solving systems
of equations by elimination, essentially one knows the whole of
the linear algebra covered in this (very stripped-down) course.
Everything else, except for eigenvectors and eigenvalues,
is just a matter of constantly restating the same facts in
different language.
A lot of the files listed below are in
PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format.
Alternate versions are in
DVI format (produced by TeX;
see
see here for a DVI viewer
provided by
John P. Costella)
and postscript format (viewable with
ghostscript.)
Some systems may have some problem with certain of the documents
in dvi format, because they use a few German letters
from a font that may not be available on some systems.
(Three alternate sites for DVI viewers, via FTP,
are
CTAN,
Duke,
and
Dante, in Germany.)
Instead of thinking of a systems of equations as constituting
m equations in n unknowns, where all the
coefficients are scalars, it can be more enlightening to think of it as a
single equation in n unknowns where the coefficients (and
constant term) are m-dimensional vectors.
Doing an elementary row operation on the left-hand factor A
of a matrix product AB gives the same result
as doing the same operation on
the product matrix. Using this observation, it is easy to explain why
the usual process for inverting a matrix works, and why the left inverse
and the right inverse are identical.
(Click here for dvi format.)
Some incorrect statements frequently found in student proofs.
Students seem to have enormous difficulty in learning the pattern for
proving any statement that essentially reduces to an implication, such as
proving that vectors are linearly independent or that a function is
one-to-one. (This may also be a main source of the difficulty students
have with proofs by induction.)
By definition, the column space of an m by n
matrix A with entries in a field F
is the subspace of Fm spanned by the columns
of A. A close examination of the method of elimination
shows that a basis for this space can be obtained by choosing
those columns of A which will contain the leading
entries of rows after A is reduced to row-echelon form.
(The row echelon form of A shows which columns to choose,
but the basis columns themselves must come from the original matrix
A.)
Suppose than an n by n matrix A has n linearly independent
eigenvectors and let P be the matrix whose columns are these
eigenvectors. Then the jth column of the product
AP is readily seen to be equal to the jth column of
P multiplied by the jth eigenvalue. If now
we write Q for the inverse of P,
it follows easily that QAP is a diagonal matrix with the
eigenvalues on the diagonal.
Systems of Linear Equations in a Nutshell
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
How to Find the Inverse of a Matrix
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format format.)
This approach enables one to omit the topic of elementary matrices from
the course.
Some Equivalent Statements
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
Some Equivalent Characterizations
of Basic Concepts
(Click here for Postscript format.)
A "Grammar Lesson" in Linear Algebra
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
The Pivotal Role of Zero in Linear Algebra
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
Proving "If .... then"
Statements
The Logical Structure of
Proving Linear Independence
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
When asked to prove "If P, then Q," students will almost invariably begin
by saying, "Suppose Q."
The logical analysis here was one of my attempts to clarify this type of
proof for students. I don't know whether it actually helps or not.
The Column Space of a Matrix
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
Eigenvalues
(Click here for dvi format.)
(Click here for Postscript format.)
This approach is not dependent on change-of-basis formulas.
Syllabus for Spring, 1996