Timeline for When exactly and why did matrix multiplication become a part of the undergraduate curriculum?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
37 events
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| Nov 30 at 14:06 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | @David Richerby: I was talking about MULTIPLICATION of matrices, which Chinese certainly did not have. | |
| Jul 4, 2023 at 20:01 | comment | added | LSpice | It is definitely not true that matrix multiplication is universally taught, even to math majors, to freshmen everywhere in the US. At my (small) university, the courses where one might most commonly expect to make first acquaintance with matrices, which I think of as Calculus III, Differential Equations, and of course Linear Algebra, are all loosely classified as junior-year courses. Of course some people do take them earlier, but there's no expectation of that. | |
| Jul 4, 2023 at 18:48 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 19, 2020 at 16:20 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | Matt. F. The empirical fact, which I derived from many years of teaching experience in the US is that ANY undergraduate who takes mathematics at all, is taught to multiply matrices. So this (rather than trigonometry, differentiation, integration etc.) is the MOST basic thing which ALL students (who take mathematics) are taught. | |
| May 19, 2020 at 13:21 | comment | added | user44143 | This question is vague on "the undergraduate curriculum" -- for majors in what subject? | |
| May 19, 2020 at 12:46 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 19, 2019 at 10:18 | answer | added | Francois Ziegler | timeline score: 24 | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 12:40 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 28, 2019 at 18:54 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | @ Igor Belegradek: Thanks for the Courant interview! | |
| Jan 28, 2019 at 18:39 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 28, 2019 at 18:12 | answer | added | Neil Strickland | timeline score: 8 | |
| Jan 28, 2019 at 17:19 | comment | added | Igor Belegradek | The following interview with Courant discusses teaching linear algebra in Göttingen in 1920s, aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4562. In particular, he says "Maybe I gave one of the first systematic courses in linear algebra". | |
| Jan 28, 2019 at 17:00 | answer | added | user21349 | timeline score: 13 | |
| Dec 23, 2017 at 14:04 | history | edited | Ben McKay | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 23, 2017 at 4:24 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 25, 2015 at 11:04 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Oct 25, 2015 at 11:34 | |||||
| Nov 6, 2014 at 1:49 | comment | added | j.c. | @RichardZhang I think your comments would make a fine answer to this question. | |
| Nov 3, 2014 at 3:10 | comment | added | Richard Zhang | While the mathematical approach to engineering was adopted by people like Tesla, it really became mainstream during the 20th century onwards. Engineering curricula shifted from a vocational, "learn-by-doing" style of teaching towards the rigorous STEM style that we see today. There is a large literature on the development of the modern-day engineering curricula which would be very relevant to this discussion. | |
| Nov 3, 2014 at 3:07 | comment | added | Richard Zhang | Many here are suggesting that quantum mechanics played an important role, which is no doubt the case. However, the bigger part is most probably the rise of mathematical engineering, whose every facet is fundamentally driven by linear algebra. This includes everything from mechanical design, to every little part of electronic circuits, to structural finite elements, to linear and nonlinear controls, and so on so forth. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 21:15 | comment | added | David Richerby | Wikipedia says that Chinese mathematicians knew about matrices and determinants three thousands years ago. Heisenberg very definitely did not invent them. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 15:55 | comment | added | DaoWen | We did matrix math my sophomore year of high school. We used it for solving systems of equations. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 14:57 | comment | added | Incnis Mrsi | Isn’t it a topic for matheducators.SE? | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 14:14 | comment | added | Julie in Austin | @AlexandreEremenko - CS isn't all that young any more. Matrix math via software was fairly well-established in CS and "CS-using" fields (hard sciences and engineerings) before the rapid growth in enrollment in the early '80s. After receiving a BSCS, I started on a BSEE in '85 and it was the very first programming assignment in Circuits, and Circuits is usually the first EE course in an EE curriculum. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 13:49 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 2, 2014 at 14:33 | |||||
| Nov 2, 2014 at 13:43 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 2, 2014 at 13:25 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | One interesting aspect of how matrix multiplication is taught, is, that apparently only one of the different possible methods is ever mentioned and, that that method is optimal for doing calculations by pen and paper, using different directions of matrix-traversal (row-wise on the left and, column-wise on the right). | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 13:15 | answer | added | user44143 | timeline score: 15 | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 12:57 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | @David Hill: history of the situation in the US is a part of the question, I would like to understand the broad picture. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 9:38 | history | edited | Federico Poloni |
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| Nov 2, 2014 at 9:37 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | Is your question focused on physics degree studies? Your examples and the tags suggest it, but it is not written explicitly. I don't know about the US, but in Europe a maths undergrad and a physics one usually follow different courses. | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 8:11 | answer | added | Carlo Beenakker | timeline score: 28 | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 3:44 | comment | added | David Hill | Just to focus in, is your question about when US universities adopted linear algebra in their core curriculum? And, if this can be established, who were the advocates of this that made it happen? | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 3:31 | comment | added | David Handelman | Do you really mean he invented matrices? After all, Cayley proved (what we now call) the Cayley-Hamilton theorem for size two and size three matrices in the 1850s, and a little later, determinants came into vogue; and I vaguely recall that Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) condemned the use of matrices in algebra. Perhaps you mean that he rediscovered matrices? | |
| Nov 2, 2014 at 1:48 | comment | added | Will Jagy | Just in support, it is striking reading number theory books by Leonard Eugene Dickson, 1929 and 1939, including quadratic forms; here matrix change of variable would have a major time and space saver. | |
| Nov 1, 2014 at 23:06 | comment | added | Per Alexandersson | Perhaps it has to do with the advances in computer science also? It is very natural to store and process huge amounts of data in matrices. | |
| Nov 1, 2014 at 21:34 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 1, 2014 at 21:29 | history | asked | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 3.0 |