ABSTRACT
Matrices have been around since 400BC and were first used by the Babylonians to help in the solution of problems involving simultaneous equations. This Babylonian work using matrices has been found recently, preserved on clay tablets. Yet the Babylonians merely used matrices as a device to store data, and not as a means of solving problems as we do today. It was not until the seventeenth century, some two thousand years later, that mathematicians were using matrices as tools to produce solutions to equations. Jordan takes his place in the history of matrices around 1869, with his work on the geometry of crystal structure. Along with his discoveries in this area, he proved that there are only four basic types of matrices from which all other matrices can be derived. These are called the Jordan forms of a matrix, and the four types have geometrical effects if applied to points in space.
