I have broken my dominant hand, leaving me unable to write. Thus far, I have been using LaTeX, but have been disappointed by how long it takes to display matrices, format, etc. Does anyone know of a linear algebra specific typesetting software?
[Math] Good typesetting software for linear algebra
linear algebramath-software
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This site uses MathJax, which has pretty much become the web standard Latex tool, because it's so easy to use.
You can get a free account at the Tumblr blogging site, and link MathJax in to it.
AFAIK, you can't incorporate MathJax into freely-hosted Wordpress.com sites. You can incorporate it into Wordpress if it's self-hosted. There may be other free Wordpress hosting sites where you could do it.
And apparently you can incorporate Mathjax into Blogger.
You can also link Mathjax to your own installation of various content management systems: Movable Type, Joomla, Drupal, MediaWiki, TiddlyWiki, and Moodle.
And just in case this question does get closed, similar questions could be asked and answered over on the WebApps StackExchange.
Edit: so, if it's a wiki you want, search for "free mediawiki hosting" or "free tiddlywiki hosting", and then look for one which will allow MathJax too.
I have to suggest the somewhat underrated Matrix Analysis by Horn and Johnson (the first edition was used for my ALA class at NCF.) They take a wonderfully concrete approach to most topics encountered in a second linear algebra course (Schur Decomposition, Spectral Theorem for Normal Operators, Jordan Canonical Form, Singular Value Decomposition) while adding a lot of other nice things into the mix. The fourth chapter on Hermitian Matrices talks about the Rayleigh Ritz Theorem and variational characterization of eigenvalues, which I imagine come up a lot in serious study of classical mechanics. Chapter five discusses finite dimensional inner product / normed / pre-normed spaces in terms of algebraic, analytic, and geometric properties. They include a discussion of completeness and the $l^p$ norms, which I guess could be seen as a preview of Hilbert Space Theory. There are also nice sections on the Gersgorin circle theorem and numerically solving linear systems.
I think it's a wonderful choice for any student, but especially a non-mathematician. The proofs are rigorous and sometimes tedious but always understandable. Typically, things are proved in an algorithmic fashion rather than through diagram chasing or algebraic artifice (nary a mention of finitely generated modules over a principal ideal domain.) My only complaint is that there are a fair number of results assumed regarding matrix algebra and determinants which wouldn't typically appear in a linear algebra course - references for these are typically not too hard to find though.
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I have published nearly $2500$ pages of books, scholarly papers, manuals, etc., in $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ (and many many more in memos, internal notes, class notes, etc.). (This doesn't count the current $420$ pages of my next book, entirely in $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$.) $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ is by far better than any other typesetting software for technical publishing. That is why it is the preferred, or one of the preferred, default standards for the American Mathematical Society, IEEE, and as far as I know every technical society. One trick, though, is to use Mathematica and its user-friendly templates, for instance for matrices, vectors, and such. Then convert it to $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ source by
TeXForm[...]. But I recommend just getting fluent in $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$. It will also help with MathJax on this site.Three "bonus benefits" are
I like the following analogy. If you just need to drive across town to shop, a simple car (automatic, inexpensive, easy to learn) will suffice. But if you're a power driver and need to go fast and take lots of sharp corners and hills, get a Ferrari. True, it takes more time to learn, but if you want to do a lot, it is better.
Same thing with other simple typesetting compared to $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$.