BOOK REVIEW

Every now and again somebody comes up with such a good idea that everyone else is left wondering why they did not think of it first. In collecting numerous results on matrices, presented without proofs in a handbook, Helmut Lutkepohl of the Humboldt University of Berlin has struck on such an idea. Given the overwhelming use made these days of matrix algebra in the natural and biological sciences, social sciences, mathematics, statistics and engineering, the rest of us are left pondering why we did not write such a book ourselves ages ago.