
No-bullshit guide to linear algebra - Irishsteve
https://gumroad.com/l/noBSLA
======
nilkn
I always have to mention my all-time favorite introductory book on this
subject:

Liner Algebra Done Right ([http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-
Undergraduate-Mat...](http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-
Undergraduate-Mathematics/dp/0387982582))

Its breakthrough is its focus on the basic algebraic properties of vector
spaces and linear maps between them. It de-emphasizes matrix computations and
especially determinants (they are covered, but only insomuch as they are
necessary).

In my experience, the result of a typical linear algebra course is most
students don't fully understand the determinant and more importantly they
don't understand the proofs of major theorems which involve long manipulations
of the determinant. They also don't understand the more algebraic side of the
subject because they aren't given a chance to--it's not covered in much
detail. The result is they don't understand the subject overall much at all.

This book is based on the observation that the abstract algebra involved in
linear algebra is actually remarkably easy, much more so than arcane
determinant manipulations.

~~~
rahimnathwani
I'm curious - did you work through this book on your own, or as part of a
class or with help from others?

I started reading it, attempting most of the exercises at the end of each
chapter, and some of the 'as you should verify' parts. I found the 'aha'
moments during the text or when solving the exercises really enjoyable, but I
got stuck often enough that I began to only pick up the book when I felt
super-alert.

I stopped about a third of the way through, a few pages before the
introduction of eigenvectors and eigenvalues. I would like to pick it up
again, but am worried about how to maintain motivation the next time I'm faced
with a page where I'm stuck/confused for 30 minutes.

EDIT: Thank you to the people who replied. Your empathy (~"you're not alone in
getting stuck") and encouragement (~"you don't have to grok everything the
first time through") have given me new motivation to try this again.

~~~
ptr
A side note: how do you feel when you've lost your motivation? Is it common to
barely be able to keep your eyes open? Or is that just me!

~~~
rahimnathwani
It's not just you. It's probably easier to accept that I'm sleepy and should
take a rest, than to acknowledge that I need to focus and think harder about
the material.

------
Pitarou
Nice title.

I'm hoping for a Math textbook written like its an abusive drill sergeant.

"You think matrix inversion is hard, huh? We're still just laying the
mothafuckin groundwork, you halfwit. You ain't BEGUN to see hard yet.... You
have no CONCEPTION of what a hard math problem might look like. This math is
not hard. This math is easy. And I'm gonna make you bust your brain against
these exercises until you make it look easy. Now pick up that goddam pencil
and WORK your brain."

~~~
enupten
Wow. I'm glad I didn't take the Math courses you went through :) Perhaps,
that's why I like it so much.

~~~
Pitarou
That's because you're a pussy.

I'm a teacher. My colleague is a former marine sergeant with a Computer
Science degree. We'd soon make a ma(thematicia)n out of you.

~~~
hessenwolf
My math teacher was an ex-narcotics cop. I was a bad student. I could do it,
but I had a serious (albeit earned) attitude problem and no motivation or
capacity to pay attention.

Currently, PhD in statistics and nearly a qualifed actuary (I've done all the
maths bits of the qualification).

You are doing Spaghetti Monster's work.

~~~
anentropic
how do you earn an attitude problem...?

~~~
hessenwolf
You gotta fight every single fucking day, so you don't get beaten up, and your
world view and how you let the world view you are going to change. I think the
teachers in my school could have maybe done anything at all to prevent this.

------
jamesmiller5
One of the harder exercises I had attempted in my linear algebra course was
the "connected tanks of water and salt".

After searching for the solution, I found this awesome resource that combines
linear algebra, differential equations and graph theory to model salt flows in
various networks of tanks.

[http://www.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~slavik/papers/mixing-
problems...](http://www.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~slavik/papers/mixing-problems.pdf)

~~~
lutusp
That's a bit beyond linear algebra -- it's only soluble (no pun intended)
using linear alegbra's methods for any arbitrary instant of time. The full
evolution of the system over time requires classical analysis and differential
equations having nonlinear properties.

My point is that the linked article uses linear algebra as part of a problem
statement that requires more than linear algebra for its analysis.

------
ivan_ah
Author here.

Thanks for all your comments!

This is the followup book from the _No bullshit guide to math and physics_ and
is written in the same style. I'm still doing some final touchups on the
prerequisites chapters (Ch1 and Ch2) and I want to beef-up the Applications
chapter, but the core material is done.

Several of my students asked to see the book---even unfinished---because they
wanted to use it to study for their finals so I decided to make a pre-release.
Once I finish the Applications chapter I'll create the print version and a
nicer looking eBook (sans-serif). The current version is intended for easy
printing at home of sections that you have to study for.

@Irishsteve thanks for posting! I am on a plane right now going to SF (tourism
mostly, but if anyone wants to talk textbook business... hit me up) and I
couldn't resist the $10 for 1h of internet time. I had a nice surprize when I
checked HN!

~~~
dkural
Page 3 - phased -> fazed (in figure explanation)

~~~
ivan_ah
Thanks!

------
daffodil2
60 pages before defining vector spaces seems like a not so good approach to
linear algebra. Since _Linear Algebra Done Right_ has already been
recommended, I will suggest _Linear Algebra Done Wrong_ :
[http://www.math.brown.edu/~treil/papers/LADW/LADW.html](http://www.math.brown.edu/~treil/papers/LADW/LADW.html)

~~~
ivan_ah
I know, I would have liked to have linear transformations and vector spaces
moved forward, but without the computational skills (grunt work) you can't
really do much with vector spaces and lin. trans. except define them.

Hence the current ordering of chapters...

~~~
nbouscal
Then just define them! The entire subject is _about_ linear transformations on
vector spaces. The biggest problem with linear algebra as its taught today is
that students uniformly come out with an understanding that linear algebra is
about matrices. It should be made clear that a matrix is simply a
representation of a transformation, and then when you do teach the grunt work
operations, you can teach them as what they actually _are_ (multiplication:
composition of transformations, determinant: area of unit square under
transformation, etc.)

------
alleycat
Khan does linear algebra: [https://www.khanacademy.org/math/linear-
algebra](https://www.khanacademy.org/math/linear-algebra)

------
trentmb
For those that like exposition in their texts:

[http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/](http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/)

------
j2kun
I wonder what the author considers bullshit.

~~~
thearn4
Apparently (unless I missed it) the Singular Value Decomposition. Which is
unfortunate. Otherwise, it reads very reasonably.

~~~
ivan_ah
SVD is in there, in the "matrix decompositions" section.

aybe I should make it more prominent.... but usually for UGRDs they focus on
eigen-decomp so I put the main focus there too...

------
jscheel
My last math class I ever took was plane trigonometry in college. Our
professor was Russian, a genius, and a total jerk. He hated that he had to
teach us lowly morons. He told us, on many occasions, that we were "stupid
Americans", that "Russian children [were] smarter than [us]", and that he
would "give us below an F if [he] could." Really managed to ruin what little
interest I had left in math. I can appreciate a book that gets right to the
meat of the matter. But for my personal relationship with math, I need
something that wraps everything up in a warm fuzzy blanket first. Major props
to the author for not wanting to inflate page count with crap, though.

~~~
j2kun
Paul Lockhart's "Measurement" does this (the fuzzy blanket) and covers all of
geometry, trigonometry, and calculus!

~~~
jscheel
Thanks, I'll check it out!

------
shacharz
I don't know how Matrix computations wasn't mentioned. When it comes to
practical implementations of linear algebra concepts this book is your best
friend. [1] [http://www.amazon.com/Computations-Hopkins-Studies-
Mathemati...](http://www.amazon.com/Computations-Hopkins-Studies-Mathematical-
Sciences/dp/0801854148)

------
shubb
This looks like a very readable take on linear algebra - the kind of book that
you could leave with a really firm understanding of how all the bits fit
together.

It looks theoretical and very deep - not what you need for passing an
undergraduate math course. Maybe exactly what you need to pass a graduate
level statistics course.

~~~
danbruc
It is not very precise but I am undecided if this is a good thing or not.

~~~
jjsz
Right. I would like to somehow subscribe to new and up coming book releases
and their reviews. You know, submit a link of this book on a site, let someone
else take the risk of buying it, then get updated on the first review and on
the average reviews after a week.

Note: The author should add a: "I _may_ want this." field with an email
subscription option :/.

------
yogrish
Seems Good One. Till now, Linear algebra by Gilbert strang is my all time
favorite. [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-
algebra-...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-
spring-2010/)

------
usav
This guy gave me this book before my final and it helped me pass. Heavily
recommend!

------
dnesteruk
Nice title, lousy default-width typesetting; nobody has an e-reader that will
fit this, and it would look equally bad in print. Also, it's 'formulae' not
'formulas'.

~~~
ivan_ah
I know. This isn't the final version, actually the width will stay the same
but the paper size will be 5.5in x 8.5 in (half of letter size).

For the eBook, I'm targeting tablets mostly (see
[http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/noBSmath_preview.pdf](http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/noBSmath_preview.pdf)
), but this is not ideal for smaller screens.

I have a kindle forma as a work in progress, but it's not idea as some
equations really need a wider screen, so not sure how to break them up...

Long term, I'll have to figure out how to generate clean epub with math as
images (I would prefer MathJax, but not all ebook readers support js). That
should fix the small screen format.

Thx for your feedback!

------
ehm_may
Will there be a print version? I have the print version of the other no
bullshit guide and love it. I much prefer print for this kind of material.

~~~
ivan_ah
Yes print version is on the way. I will use the proceeds from the pre-release
sale to hire my trusty copy-editor again, work on some exercises, and then
we'll have a v1.0 release, print and PDF.

~~~
evgen
Any chance for electronic formats other than PDF? The lack of real reflow in
PDF means it is pretty useless on smaller devices. Epub or mobi are equally
useful, anything besides just PDF really...

~~~
ivan_ah
I've been learning how to generate .epub, but I'm having trouble with
generating the math equations that render nicely.

Do you know of any epubs with math in them that I could imitate?

Would you be willing to try out some of my .epub testing and give me feedback?
If so please send me an email.

------
ggauravr
will try it out to see if there's anything in store for a beginner in Machine
Learning !

------
jobnobber
I look at the title of the book and I think "amateur hour".

~~~
ivan_ah
;)

Well then the title worked! The idea is to disguise a serious textbook that
teaches the material and understanding, but not make it _look_ like a non-
serious text so as not to scare off the reader.

