Math.310.001 Linear Algebra
Computer Tools

Most of the techniques and processes of linear algebra are tedious to carry out by hand.  It is important that you understand how these techniques work, and why they are valid.  But when you apply the techniques it is often much more efficient to use computer software than to try to do all the steps by hand.  For this reason, we will be seeing many examples carried out using a general purpose matrix calculator called Free Mat.  CD's will be distributed in class for use with computers running MS Windows.  If your computer uses a different operating system, or if you want the most up to date version of Free Mat, you can down load that from the Free Mat website:

http://freemat.sourceforge.net/

We will take some class time to work through a tutorial on Free Mat in a computer lab.  Instructions will be handed out in class.  For reference, the tutorial instructions are also available here.

We will also be using some special purpose interactive webpages to explore certain concepts in the course.  For row operations, we will use this webpage:  http://www.dangries.com/Flash/RowReducer/RowReducer.html.  Other websites of interest can be found on the course's page of links.