What parts of linear algebra are used in computer science?

Problem Detail: 

I've been reading Linear Algebra and its Applications to help understand computer science material (mainly machine learning), but I'm concerned that a lot of the information isn't useful to CS. For example, knowing how to efficiently solve systems of linear equations doesn't seem very useful unless you're trying to program a new equation solver. Additionally, the book has talked a lot about span, linear dependence and independence, when a matrix has an inverse, and the relationships between these, but I can't think of any application of this in CS. So, what parts of linear algebra are used in CS?

Asked By : Kelmikra

Answered By : Yuval Filmus

The parts that you mentioned are basic concepts of linear algebra. You cannot understand the more advanced concepts (say, eigenvalues and eigenvectors) before first understanding the basic concepts. There are no shortcuts in mathematics. Without an intuitive understanding of the concepts of span and linear independence you won't get far in linear algebra.

Some algorithms only work with full rank matrices – Do you know what that means? Do you know what can make a matrix not full rank? How to handle this? You will have no clue if you don't know what linear independence is.

The Gaussian elimination algorithm that is used to solve linear equations can actually be numerically unstable if implemented improperly, and this is something that you might have to worry about in some cases. Without understanding the algorithm you won't know where the problem comes from and whether there's anything you can do about it – not at the level of algorithms for solving linear equations, but at the level of coming up with the correct linear equations to solve.

In short, don't be lazy, and take it on faith that these things are useful.

Best Answer from StackOverflow

Question Source : http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/39971