I find my self surprised just how often Linear Algebra pops up. A few years ago I was doing some work with Splines, trying to smooth some noisy plant data and I

I find my self surprised just how often Linear Algebra pops up. A few years ago I was doing some work with Splines, trying to smooth some noisy plant data and I had to relearn matrix decomposition (LU factorisation). Every year or so since I've been ambushed by some other "stealth" aplication of linear algebra in something you'd otherwise think would not be applicable. Nowadays my old beat up linear algebra text book from uni sits right beside "C in a nutshell" and the printed GDB manual on my shelf at work.