An Engineering Approach to Linear Algebra

by W.W. Sawyer

Professor Sawyer's book is based on a course given to the majority of engineering students in their first year at Toronto University. Its aim is to present the important ideas in linear algebra to students of average ability whose principal interests lie outside the field of mathematics; as such it will be of interest to students in other disciplines as well as engineering. The emphasis throughout is on imparting an understanding of the significance of the mathematical techniques and great care has therefore been taken to being out the underlying ideas embodied in the formal calculations. In those places where a rigorous treatment would be very long and wearisome, an explanation rather than a complete proof is provided, the reader being warned that in a more formal treatment such results would need to be be proved. The book is full of physical analogies (many from fields outside the realm of engineering) and contains many worked and unworked examples, integrated with the text.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 1972

About the author

Walter Warwick Sawyer (or W.W. Sawyer) was a mathematician, mathematics educator and author, who taught on several continents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another excellent WW Sawyer mathematics textbook. If you desire rigorous proofs, then this is not the book for you, however. It is an engineering approach, which means that Sawyer gives examples, often gives the gist of why certain algorithms work (that is, he doesn't cover every case or his explanation is less a "proof" than a fairly convincing argument). I think this is often better when first introducing a subject, and Sawyer does a good job executing here. If you are not looking for this style, then I can understand why this would be a poor textbook for you. Sawyer explains linear algebra applications and how to think about its various aspects in multiple, different ways, and I found them insightful. I also thought it interesting that he doesn't really get into linear algebra as solving linear equations in matrix form until the end of the book, which is often the opposite tactic in linear algebra courses. This to emphasize the other ways of thinking about linear algebra and to avoid confusion about the conversion process for matrices into row-echelon form. If you are beginning a linear algebra course, and would like a different approach, I think this would be an excellent choice. It would also be interesting to see how students would feel with this as their main textbook. I am too familiar with the material to evaluate this aspect of the book.