Linear Algebra Lab

Drag vectors to see a span collapse, warp the grid with a matrix, hunt eigenvectors by hand, run Gram–Schmidt step by step, and watch a circle become an ellipse under the SVD.

About the Linear Algebra Lab

Linear algebra is the language of machine learning, graphics and data science, and most of it is easier to see than to read. The Linear Algebra Lab turns each idea into something you can drag: two vectors and the plane they span, a grid that a matrix stretches and shears, an eigenvector that stays on its own line while everything else turns.

Every experiment pairs a picture with the numbers behind it, and a short theory note underneath, so you can check your intuition against the definition. Matrices can be typed in or picked from presets, and the lab reports the rank, determinant, eigenvalues and other quantities live as you change them. It works on a phone as well as on a computer.

It suits first-year engineering and science students, anyone revising for exams such as GATE, and people moving into machine learning who want the geometry behind PCA, least squares and the SVD. The experiments run roughly in the order a university course teaches them, from span and elimination through eigenvalues to the SVD.

Experiments in this lab

  1. Linear combinations and span: Mix two vectors and see which points you can reach.
  2. Independence, basis, dimension: When a vector adds nothing new, and how many you really need.
  3. A matrix as a transformation: Watch a matrix move the whole grid at once.
  4. Gaussian elimination: Row reduce step by step to solve a system.
  5. Column space, null space, rank: What a matrix can reach, and what it sends to zero.
  6. Determinants as area and volume: How much a matrix scales area, and when it flattens it.
  7. Coordinates and change of basis: The same point described in two different grids.
  8. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors: Find the directions a matrix only stretches.
  9. Diagonalisation and powers: Why repeated multiplication is easy in the right basis.
  10. Markov chains and PageRank: Random surfing on a small web, and the ranking it settles to.
  11. Dot product, length, angle: Measure vectors and the angle between them.
  12. Gram–Schmidt and QR: Turn any basis into a perpendicular one.
  13. Projection and distance: The closest point on a line or plane.
  14. Least squares and regression: The best-fitting line when no line fits exactly.
  15. The spectral theorem: Symmetric matrices and their perpendicular eigenvectors.
  16. Quadratic forms and definiteness: Bowls, saddles and what the eigenvalues say about them.
  17. Singular values and the SVD: A circle becomes an ellipse: rotate, stretch, rotate.
  18. Low-rank approximation: Keep the largest singular values and see how much survives.