About the Book This textbook develops the essential tools of linear algebra, with the goal of imparting technique alongside contextual understanding. Applications go hand-in-hand with theory, each reinforcing and explaining the other. This approach encourages students to develop not only the technical proficiency needed to go on to further study, but an appreciation for when, why, and how the tools of linear algebra can be used across modern applied mathematics. Providing an extensive treatment of essential topics such as Gaussian elimination, inner products and norms, and eigenvalues and singular values, this text can be used for an in-depth first course, or an application-driven second course in linear algebra. In this second edition, applications have been updated and expanded to include numerical methods, dynamical systems, data analysis, and signal processing, while the pedagogical flow of the core material has been improved. Throughout, the text emphasizes the conceptual connections between each application and the underlying linear algebraic techniques, thereby enabling students not only to learn how to apply the mathematical tools in routine contexts, but also to understand what is required to adapt to unusual or emerging problems. No previous knowledge of linear algebra is needed to approach this text, with single-variable calculus as the only formal prerequisite. However, the reader will need to draw upon some mathematical maturity to engage in the increasing abstraction inherent to the subject. Once equipped with the main tools and concepts from this book, students will be prepared for further study in differential equations, numerical analysis, data science and statistics, and a broad range of applications. The first author's text, Introduction to Partial Differential Equations , is an ideal companion volume, forming a natural extension of the linear mathematical methods developed here.
Rachel VanSickle-Ward is Professor of Political Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Her research interests include public policy, public law, state politics, and gender and politics. She has published work on the politics of statutory language, gender and political ambition, and administrative law. Her first book, The Devil is in the Details: Understanding the Causes of Policy Specificity and Ambiguity (2014; winner, Herbert A. Simon Book Award), explores the impact of political and institutional fragmentation on policy wording, focusing on the dynamics of social policy construction in the states. She is a frequent commentator on KPCC's Take Two (Southern California Public Radio). Her writing has appeared in Talking Points Memo, The Washington Post (The Monkey Cage), and U.S. News and World Report.
Kevin Wallsten is Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach and former President of the American Political Science Association's Section on Information Technology and Politics. He has published over 20 research articles in the areas of American elections, public opinion, political communication, social media and race and ethnic politics. Two of these articles have been acknowledged with awards by the American Political Science Association and, collectively, his papers have been cited in nearly 1,000 other published works. His research has been discussed in mainstream news outlets, including
The New York Times,
The Washington Post, and
The Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared as a political analyst on television news programs such as ABC 7 News, Charter Local Edition and CSULB's Beach TV.
