Linear Algebra classic books I'm learning linear algebra at the moment, so I'm looking for some great old classic books. Something like Fermat's or Gauss books of some great mathematians.
I don't really like the nowadays books of Gilbert Strand style... I'm looking for the more philosophical aspects of the subject.
Thank, Itamar.
 A: I guess you are looking for something along these lines:


*

*Hermann Grassmann, "Extension Theory" (1844)

*Arthur Cayley, "Memoir on the Theory of Matrices" (1858)

*Hussein Tevfik, "Linear Algebra" (1882)
A: A more "modern" book than those already mentioned is the one by Paul Halmos here.    This was first published in 1942 in the Annals of Math. Studies series, with a later edition in 1958; that edition was reprinted as a Springer "undergraduate" text.   It was actually my first encounter with linear algebra (late in college) and approaches the subject in the coordinate-free spirit of infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces.   It's very far away from the spirit of contemporary textbooks---even Strang, which is fairly difficult for most sophomores but also fairly concrete.  Halmos was himself mostly involved in the study of linear operators on infinite dimensional spaces, but he was a good communicator with a style of his own (and an avid amateur photographer, whose photo of me may still exist somewhere out there).      
