Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory

Linear algebra, and more than one such book. IMHO long and still the best linear algebra book is Halmos, Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces (FDVS). It was written in 1942 when Halmos was an "assistant" to John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study. It is intended to be finite dimensional vector spaces but done with the techniques of Hilbert space. The central result in the book, according to Halmos, is the spectral decomposition. One result at a time, the quality of von Neumann comes through. Commonly physicists have been given that book as their introduction to Hilbert space for quantum mechanics. But FDVS is a little too much for a first book on linear algebra, or maybe even a second book, should be maybe a third one. Also high quality is Nering, Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory. Again, the quality comes through: Nering was a student of Artin at Princeton. There Nering does most of linear algebra on just finite fields, not just the real and complex fields; finite fields in linear algebra are important in error correcting codes. So, that finite field work is a good introduction to abstract algebra.…