Linear algebra gems. Assets for undergraduate mathematics (Q2771507)

This collection of over 70 short articles is for the enlightenment, stimulation and enjoyment of instructors in a first course of linear algebra. Articles are chosen to illustrate particular points of interest and material widely available in textbooks is avoided. Some articles are directly of the ``how to teach it'' variety while others illuminate difficulties that arise in teaching (such as the excellent article on the pitfalls of finding eigenvalues with the aid of a microcomputer). Yet others address questions that might occur to students (``what is the determinant of the sum of 2 matrices?'') and others still point to interesting and unexpected applications (such as the matrix-tree theorem for counting the spanning trees of an undirected graph). The variety of the articles is one of the attractions of the book.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEA number of the articles are reprinted from past issues of the American Mathematical Monthly and the College Mathematical Journal. Others appear in print for the first time. There is a collection of 123 problems of widely varying difficulty. Most mathematicians with an interest in linear algebra will enjoy dipping into the volume.