Tips on using your textbook
(Friedberg, Insel, and Spence)
-
The book's notation for the set of real numbers is R rather
than R; for the complex numbers it is C rather
than C.
- Whenever the book refers to a field F, you may assume
F=R unless otherwise specified. (Later in the course
there may be times when we want to allow F=C.)
- Note that the authors use the non-italic numeral "0" for the
scalar ( i.e. number) 0, and an italic 0 for the zero
element of a vector space. If you read carefully and the book has no
typo's, there should never be any confusion about whether something
is the zero scalar or the zero vector.
- Unless otherwise stated by the authors, lower-case letters near
the end of the alphabet, such as u,v,w,x,y,z, stand for vectors
(elements of vector spaces), while lower-case letters near
the beginning of the alphabet ( a,b,c, etc.) stand for scalars.
The authors do not seem to mention this explicitly.
- There is a
notation index on p. 541.
This page was last modified by D. Groisser on Aug. 24, 1998.