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What did you think of MacDonald's book? Did you feel the content could have practical use to you? I'm intrigued, but reluctant to invest the time/effort if th

• ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  It's the kind of book that lets you solve the same amount of problems with much more concise mathematical knowledge and structure. I didn't have a pressing need for linear algebra, so I didn't get everything out of it that I could have, but overall it helped clarify the way I thought about many math concepts. For example, in two dimensions there is one direction for "sideways", so complex numbers have a one-dimensional vector `i`. In three, there are three coherent directions for "sideways", so quaternions have a three-dimensional vector `i`. If you have coordinate-free ways of thinking about linear algebra, you can treat both complex numbers and quaternions as "the same kind of thing" in many ways. I especially recommend this book if you need mathematical elegance in order to learn things and have a low tolerance for explanations that amount to "that's just how things work, go memorize stuff".