Linear Algebra with Applications (4th Edition) | 
 enlarge | Author: Otto Bretscher
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Category: Book
List Price: $141.33
Buy New: $107.33
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Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 3883
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 4
Pages: 504
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 8.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0136009263
Dewey Decimal Number: 512.5
EAN: 9780136009269
Publication Date: October 10, 2008
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Product Description
KEY BENEFIT: This trusted reference offers an intellectually honest, thought-provoking, sound introduction to linear algebra. Enables readers to grasp the subject with a challenging, yet visually accessible approach that does not sacrifice mathematical integrity. Adds over 400 new exercises to the problem sets, ranging in difficulty from elementary to more challenging. Adds new historical problems taken from ancient Chinese, Indian, Arabic, and early European sources. Strengthens geometric and conceptual emphasis. A comprehensive, thorough reference for anyone who needs to brush up on their knowledge of linear algebra.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 39 more reviews...
 Excellent textbook. April 21, 2008
Gregory E. Hersh
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I took Linear Algebra many years ago at MIT, w/Strang. The course was focused on technicalities of manipulating with matrices but didn't give any deep insightes on the subject of Linear Algrebra. More recently I've found it necessary to review the whole thing and took the course at UMass, with this book as a textbook. The difference was substantial. This textbook probably gives less methods of matrix decomposition (compared with Strang) but it discusses the general idea of Vector Spaces, talks of isomorphism of all finite vector spaces, gets into Inner Product spaces, provides more broader view. The text is suitable for self-study. In fact, right now I'm talking Analysis with Rudin, we discuss Fourier Analysis, I've decided to refresh my memory on Orthogonal projections, got this textbook, read the whole thing, then moved to Inner product spaces (the section we skipped when I was taking that course), again, made easy and straightforward reading. I still keep Strang, as a supplement and reference, though.
This book is fantastic for an introduction to linear algebra July 21, 2008
Mark Twain (Boston, MA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Because I couldn't fit linear algebra in my undergrad curriculum I decided to learn it on my own. After glancing through as many books as I could I went with this one. It was a great decision. Concepts in this book are explained in great detail and are not difficult to follow. The few proofs that were omitted are left as exercises and aren't too difficult to figure out. I highly recommend this text for anyone that wants an introduction to linear algebra.
Nice intro to linear algebra November 1, 2003
Alan Chen (United States)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I pretty much read this entire book front to back. It covers most basic linear algebra concepts. I don't understand why this book is getting such a poor review. It's concise and to the point. It's mathematically accurate and the problems can be challenging. The notation can take a while to get used to but it is mathematical convention. I found the part on fourier series to be very useful for studying more advanced math topics and for engineering.
For me, the conciseness was a plus! April 17, 2004
Adam Pasztory (San Francisco, CA United States)
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
It looks like some of the reviewers here disagree with me, but I think this textbook is excellent. The explanations and examples are generally very clear, and there isn't a lot of distracting nonsense. In many textbooks they try too hard to teach through "Real World" examples. i find such examples confusing because they obscure the math behind the example.I also felt this book had a nice mix of easy, medium and challenging problems. And it feels like the author really understands and strives to clarify many of the hurdles faced by Linear Algebra students. Make no mistake about it, Linear Algebra is a tough class that requires a lot of dilligence and abstract thinking. This book isn't going to guarantee you an A. But if you work through it, and if you have a helpful teacher, you'll be on the right track. By the way, I am a Computer Science major, and while I consider myself decent at math, I'm by no means a math genius. :)
A great book for self-tutoring June 2, 2006
John A. Papaioannou (Ithaca, NY)
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I took an undergraduate course in linear algebra which assigned this textbook and basically, it made the lectures dispensable, it was that good.
The text is very well written and presents the concepts being discussed in a visual manner complete with many diagrams to aid the reader. A fresh surprise is that the author's personality really shines through in the text as he includes many side comments and interesting historical footnotes which really enrich the book. Every new concept/lemma presented is coupled with an example which I find to be extremely important.... and for further study the end of the chapter problems range from simple computational types to nail down various processes to much more abstract and proof oriented types which are very rewarding and insightful.
Now, this book was assigned to both the linear algebra course for math majors and the linear algebra course for engineers and it was my understanding that math majors preferred the text over the engineers. This is probably because it is a conceptual/theoretical treatment of the material and does not really contain too many applied math problems. It is only in the last few chapters regarding linear differential equations in which the book delves into mathematical physics where the applications are obvious.
Regardless, if you want a textbook to learn the fundamentals of linear algebra this is it.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that there's a whole section on data-fitting and least squares which is purely applied linear algebra... so there's a bit more applications than I remarked earlier.
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