How is linear algebra used in algorithms?

Question

Several of my peers have mentioned that \"linear algebra\" is very important when studying algorithms. I\'ve studied a variety of algorithms and taken a few linear algebra cour

Answer 1

A cryptographer would probably tell you that a grasp of number theory is very important when studying algorithms. And he'd be right--for his particular field. Statistics has its uses too--skip lists, hash tables, etc. The usefulness of graph theory is even more obvious.

There's no inherent link between linear algebra and algorithms; there's an inherent link between mathematics and algorithms.

Linear algebra is a field with many applications, and the algorithms that draw on it therefore have many applications as well. You've not wasted your time studying it.