Do you mean, what are eigenvalues used for? I found this to be an incredibly clear and simple description of what eigenvalues are. I completely missed the poin

Do you mean, what are eigenvalues used for? I found this to be an incredibly clear and simple description of what eigenvalues are. I completely missed the point in University. I agree that it was missing a discussion of what they're used for. You might also want to look at the eigenvalue section of the paper "An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method without the Agonizing Pain" http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake-papers/painless-conjugate-gradient.pdf http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake-papers/painless-conjugate-gradi...