• Scott Wolpert to lead NSF-funded project on DEI in mathematics and statistics

    Congratulations to Scott Wolpert, professor emeritus of mathematics, who was named principal investigator of a new project to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in mathematics departments. The project is funded by a $600,000 grant from the NSF, and it will provide DEI training to six representatives of math and statistics departments Read More
  • Abba Gumel Featured in Scientific American Article

    Congratulations to Abba Gumel being featured in a new Scientific American Article. The title is “How Mathematics Can Predict and Help Prevent the Next Pandemic” (link to the article). What a great advertisement to Maryland. It is a great honor to have Abba as our colleagues.   Congratulations Abba! Read More
  • Congratulations to Perrin Ruth and Elliot Kienzle

    Eighteen current students and recent alums of the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) received prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, which recognize outstanding graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Across the university, 34 current students and recent alums were among the Read More
  • Congrats to CMNS' Deven Bowman, 2023 Goldwater Scholar

    Congratulations to Deven Bowman, a junior physics and mathematics dual-degree student, who was named a 2023 Goldwater Scholar! Deven has done research with Eun-Suk Seo and Steve Rolston and studied abroad in Florence with Luis Orozco. This summer he’ll be at Caltech working on LIGO. And, fun fact, both of his parents Read More
  • Maryland finishes fourth in the 2022 Putnam competition

     We are very excited to share the news that the University of Maryland Putnam team ranked fourth among 456 institutions in the 2022 Putnam Competition. This is the best result for our team in more than four decades. The first three teams are MIT, Harvard and Stanford. Our team members, Read More
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Description

Basic concepts of linear algebra: vector spaces, applications to line and plane geometry, linear equations and matrices, similar matrices, linear transformations, eigenvalues, determinants and quadratic forms. All sections of the course will use the software system MATLAB. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: MATH 240 or MATH 341 or MATH 461.

Prerequisites

a C- or better in (MATH 131 or MATH141)

Topics

Systems of Linear Equations

Gaussian elimination
Matrix operations
Finding the inverse
Solution spaces

Determinants

Definition
Evaluation
Minors
Cramer's Rule

Vectors in 2- and 3- space

Geometric and algebraic definitions
Dot product
Projections

Vector Spaces

Euclidean space
Subspaces
Linear independence
Basis and dimension
Row space, rank
Length and angle
Gram-Schmidt
Least squares

Linear Transformations

Definition
Kernel and range
Representation as matrices

Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors

Definition
Diagonalization
Orthogonal diagonalization
Symmetric matrices

Applications

Differential equations
Quadratic forms
Numerical methods

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