This text for a second course in linear algebra, aimed at math majors and graduates, adopts a novel approach by banishing determinants to the end of the book and focusing on understanding the structure of linear operators on vector spaces. The author has taken unusual care to motivate concepts and to simplify proofs. For example, the book presents - without having defined determinants - a clean proof that every linear operator on a finite-dimensional complex vector space has an eigenvalue. The book starts by discussing vector spaces, linear independence, span, basics, and dimension. Students are introduced to inner-product spaces in the first half of the book and shortly thereafter to the finite- dimensional spectral theorem. A variety of interesting exercises in each chapter helps students understand and manipulate the objects of linear algebra. This second edition features new chapters on diagonal matrices, on linear functionals and adjoints, and on the spectral theorem; some sections, such as those on self-adjoint and normal operators, have been entirely rewritten; and hundreds of minor improvements have been made throughout the text.

Sheldonc Axler,11975年畢業於加州大學伯剋利分校,1現為舊金山州立大學理工學院院長.a《美國數學月刊》的編委,1MathematicalcIntelligencer主編,1同時還是Springer的GTM研究生數學教材係列等多個係列叢書的主編。