Programma di Linear Algebra And Geometry:

 

 LINEAR ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY   TEXTBOOK: T. Apostol: Calculus, Vol. I and II,  Wiley (1969).  Vol. I: Chapetrs   12, 13, 14, 15, 16.  Vol. II: Chapters   3, 4, 5.    SYLLABUS:       STANDARD n-DIMENSIONAL EUCLIDEAN SPACES: vector algebra, dot product, norm and distance, orthogonal projection, orthogonality, angles, spanning sets, linear independence, bases. Standard complex euclidean spaces (Apostol, Vol. I  Chapter 12) .   APPLICATIONS TO ANALYTIC GEOMETRY: lines, planes (parametric and cartesian equations), normal vectors, distance point-line and point-plane, cross product and area, mixed product and volume. Conic sections: polar equation, conic sections with center of symmetry, cartesian equations (Apostol, Vol.,  Chapter 13).   VECTOR-VALUED FUNCTIONS: curves, velocity vector and speed, normal vector, acceleration vector and curvature, osculating plane, arc-length, curves in polar coordinates,  motion with central acceleration, Kepler's laws (Apostol, Vol. I, Chapter 14).   LINEAR SPACES: vector algebra, linear subspaces, spanning sets, linear independence, bases, dimension. Euclidean spaces: dot product, norms, orthogonality,  orthogonal projection, Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization, orthogonal decomposition, explicit calculations in infinite-dimensional function spaces (Apostol, Vol. I, Chapter 15).   LINEAR TRANSFORMATIONS AND MATRICES: linear transformations (examples in finite and infinite dimension), null-space and rank, injectivity and surjectivity of linear transformations, linear transformations with prescribed values on a basis, matrices, matrices representing a linear transformation, systems of linear equations, inverses (Apostol, Vol. I, Chapter 16).   DETERMINANTS: definition via axioms, Laplace expansions, determinant of a product, determinant and linear independence, determinant and inverses,  Cramer's rule (Apostol, Vol. II, Chapter 3).   EIGENVALUES AND EIGENVECTORS: basic properties, characteristic polynomial,\hfill\break  trace, diagonalization of a linear operator (Apostol, Vol. II, Chapter 4).    EIGENVALUES AND EIGENVECTORS OF OPERATORS  ACTING ON EUCLIDEAN SPACES: hermitian and self-hermitian operators, symmetric and skew-symmetric matrices, hermitian and skew-hermitian matrices, orthogonal and unitary matrices, diagonalization of hermitian and skew-hermitian operators (spectral theorem). Quadratic forms and their normal forms. Applications to conic sections. (Apostol, Vol. II, Chapter 5).   \bigskip\noindent IN THE LAG COURSE A CENTRAL ROLE IS PLAYED BY EXERCISES: FIRST OF ALL,THOSE IN THE TEXTBOOK, AND ALSO THOSE FOUND IN THE EXERCISES FILES.