[munchbunny]

In my high school matrices were first taught in geometry class, starting with using matrices as affine transformations in 2-d and then 3-d, and using that to teach concepts like what eigenvectors/values are, the equivalence of matrix and function composition, etc.

That was taught right after a unit on complex numbers and trigonometry so that we could see the parallels between composing polynomial functions on complex numbers and composing affine transformations.

To this day I think that was one of the most beautiful and eye opening lessons I've had in mathematics.

In hindsight, I think I got lucky that the teachers who wrote the curriculum this way were math, physics, and comp sci masters/phd's who looked at their own educations and decided that geometry class was a great Trojan horse for linear algebra.

[rramadass]

You certainly were lucky to be taught Linear Algebra in such a manner! I came to understand the importance of such an approach only after a lot of head-scratching and self-study. IMO, a beautiful and important branch of "Practical" Maths has been needlessly obscured by the pedantic formalism espoused by the teaching community. Linear Algebra SHOULD always be taught alongside Coordinate/Analytic Geometry and Trigonometry for proper intuition.

I found the book "Practical Linear Algebra: A Geometry Toolbox" very helpful in my study.