Aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, this book provides a first taste of the theory of Lie groups as an appetiser for a more substantial further course. Lie theoretic ideas lie at the heart of much of standard undergraduate linear algebra and exposure to them can inform or motivate the study of the latter.
The main focus is on matrix groups, i.e., closed subgroups of real and complex general linear groups. The first part studies examples and describes the classical families of simply connected compact groups. The second part introduces the idea of a lie group...