  Higgs bundles appeared a few decades ago as solutions to certain equations
from physics and have attracted much attention in geometry as well as other
areas of mathematics and physics. Here, we take a very informal stroll through
some aspects of linear algebra that anticipate the deeper structure in the
moduli space of Higgs bundles. (This note was produced for the MFO Snapshots of
Modern Mathematics series, which is "designed to promote the understanding and
appreciation of modern mathematics and mathematical research in the interested
public world-wide.")
