Preface From the Student Authors
This book reflects a shared commitment to collaboration and the ideals of Open Education. Its purpose is to broaden access to higher learning by offering clear and welcoming materials that help students engage with open-source tools in mathematics.
We are especially grateful to Hellen Colman, Professor of Mathematics at Wright College, our co-author, and our guiding compass and lighthouse, helping us navigate forward with purpose and direction. Her depth of mathematical knowledge helped maintain the precision and significance of the content. Drawing inspiration from her Linear Algebra online lectures and at the City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College, this work has benefited greatly from her mentorship and encouragement. Her confidence in us played a key role in influencing our thinking and methods, from the Linear Algebra coursework through the development of this OER.
We extend our appreciation to our peer reviewers and proofreaders, whose careful and thorough work helped maintain the precision and readability of this textbook. Their efforts were vital to the successful completion of this project.
Developing this text was a true team endeavor, shaped by the dedication and motivation of many contributors. The standard of the final result speaks to our combined efforts and shared passion. Most importantly, we extend our sincere appreciation to all who contributed to making this endeavor become a reality. Their commitment and spirit of cooperation have left a meaningful and enduring mark on this work and on Open Education as a whole.
We are also thankful for the many skilled developers and mathematicians across open-source communities. The PreTeXt community was central to our writing workflow, and the SageMath community contributed invaluable disciplinary insight. We sincerely acknowledge everyone involved in building Sage, as well as the creators of PreTeXt.
Allaoua Boughrira, Michael Kattner, and Samuel Lubliner
