Publisher's Synopsis
An excerpt from the Preface:
THE importance of a knowledge of Determinants to all who extend their reading beyond the elements of mathematics, and the fact that most modern writers employ the determinant notation, have led to the belief that an American work on Determinants might satisfy a growing demand.
This is a text-book, and not an exhaustive treatise. Enough is given, however, to enable the student to use the determinant notation with ease, and to enable him to pursue his further reading in the modern higher mathematics with pleasure and profit.
The book is written with reference to the wants of the private student as well as to the needs of the class-room. The subject is at first presented with great simplicity. As the student advances, less attention is given to details. More than half the volume is devoted to applications and special forms, that the reader may get some notion of the power and utility of determinants as instruments of research.
Throughout the work care has been taken to show how each new concept has been evolved naturally; and, whenever it is thought advisable, a special case precedes the general discussion.
The work has been written in the far West, where contact with others in the same field was practically impossible. I shall therefore be grateful for any notification of errors that may have escaped detection.
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This is pure algebra, a knowledge of which any teacher of algebra should certainly possess.
-University of Chicago School Review, Volume 14
