Show that the terms ‘nilpotent transformation’ and ‘nilpotent matrix’, as given in Definition 2.7, fit with each other: a map is nilpotent if and only if it is represented by a nilpotent matrix. (Is it that a transformation is nilpotent if an only if there is a basis such that the map’s representation with respect to that basis is a nilpotent matrix, or that any representation is a nilpotent matrix?)
Hefferon, Linear Algebra, Similarity, Strings, Exercise 14