Similar matrices have the same eigenvalues with the same geometric multiplicity 
Suppose $A$ and $B$ are similar matrices. Show that $A$ and $B$ have the same eigenvalues with the same geometric multiplicities.
Similar matrices: Suppose $A$ and $B$ are $n\times n$ matrices over $\mathbb R$ or $\mathbb C$. We say $A$ and $B$ are similar, or that $A$ is similar to $B$, if there exists a matrix $P$ such that $B = P^{-1}AP$.

 A: $B = P^{-1}AP \ \Longleftrightarrow \ PBP^{-1} = A$. If $Av = \lambda v$, then $PBP^{-1}v = \lambda v \ \Longrightarrow \ BP^{-1}v = \lambda P^{-1}v$. So, if $v$ is an eigenvector of $A$, with eigenvalue $\lambda$, then $P^{-1}v$ is an eigenvector of $B$ with the same eigenvalue. So, every eigenvalue of $A$  is an eigenvalue of $B$ and since you can interchange the roles of $A$ and $B$ in the previous calculations, every eigenvalue of $B$ is an eigenvalue of $A$ too. Hence, $A$ and $B$ have the same eigenvalues.
Geometrically, in fact, also $v$ and $P^{-1}v$ are the same vector, written in different coordinate systems. Geometrically, $A$ and $B$ are matrices associated with the same endomorphism. So, they have the same eigenvalues and geometric multiplicities.
A: The matrices $A$ and $B$ describe the same linear transformation $L$ of some vector space $V$ with respect to different bases. For any $\lambda\in{\mathbb C}$ the set $E_\lambda:=\lbrace x\in V\ |\ Lx=\lambda x\rbrace$ is a well defined subspace of $V$ and therefore has a clearcut dimension ${\rm dim}(E_\lambda)\geq0$ which is independent of any basis one might chose for $V$. Of course, for most $\lambda\in{\mathbb C}$ this dimension is $0$, which means $E_\lambda=\{{\bf 0}\}$. If $\lambda$ is actually an eigenvalue of $L$ then ${\rm dim}(E_\lambda)$ is called the (geometric) multiplicity of this eigenvalue. 
So there is actually nothing to prove.
A: It's basically something like:  If $v_1,\dots,v_k$ is a basis for the eigenspace of A corresponding to eigenvalue $\lambda$, then $P^{-1}v_1,\dots,P^{-1}v_k$ is a basis for the eigenspace of B corresponding to the same eigenvalue.  There are some details to be filled in, like showing that any vector $w$ with $Bw=\lambda w$ can be written as a linear combination of the $P^{-1}v_i$ by using that the same holds for the matrix $A$ and the vectors $v_i$ by assumption.
A: Will's got you pretty much there. With that logic, you'll see that $A$ and $B$ share a common characteristic equation and thus A and B have identical eigenvalues with identical corresponding algebraic multiplicities.
Now how could you use the fact that $A$ and $B$ are similar to show that each eigenvalue has the same geometric multiplicity? One way is to use Will's trick again:
$B=PAP^{-1}$ implies that $B-λI=PAP^{-1}-PIP^{-1}$ and so $B-λI=P(A-\lambda I)P^{-1}$. Since P is invertible, this shows that the dimension of the null space of $B-\lambda_0 I$ (which corresponds to the dimension of the eigenspace) equals the dimension of $A-\lambda_0 I$. Thus $A$ and $B$ will share a common set of eigenvalues and a common set of corresponding multiplicities.
