This chapter introduces some of the basic players of the algebraic drama about to unfold, and the uniform notations used in this book. While Chapter 3 is a more formal introduction to linear algebra, this introductory chapter presents some of the most basic elements, and permitted manipulations and operations, of linear algebra. It covers the following scalar variables, stochastic processes and variables, matrix variables, fields, vector variables, vector transpose, vector addition, linear independence, inner product of two vectors, projection, orthogonality, the norm of a vector, unit vector, matrix variables, matrix addition, transpose of a matrix, special matrices, matrix product, and matrix outer product.