Questions tagged [matrices]

For any topic related to matrices. This includes: systems of linear equations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors (diagonalization, triangularization), determinant, trace, characteristic polynomial, adjugate and adjoint, transpose, Jordan normal form, matrix algorithms (e.g. LU, Gauss elimination, SVD, QR), invariant factors, quadratic forms, etc. For questions specifically concerning matrix equations, use the (matrix-equations) tag.

A matrix is a rectangular array of elements, usually numbers or variables, arranged in rows and columns. A matrix with $m$ rows and $n$ columns has $m \times n$ elements and is called an $m$ by $n$ matrix. Matrices are a part of .

Matrices can be added and subtracted. Furthermore, if they have compatible shapes, they can be multiplied. More precisely, given two matrices $A$ and $B$, the matrix $AB$ is defined when the number of columns of $A$ is equal to the number of rows of $B$. In particular, given a natural number $n$, any two matrices $A$ and $B$ with $n$ columns and $n$ rows can be multiplied in both ways (that is, both $AB$ and $BA$ exist).


For questions specifically concerning matrix equations, use the tag.

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Solutions of Matrix Equation $XAX^{T}=A$ for unknown $X$

Given a square, symmetric positive semidefinite matrix $A$, I am looking for solutions to the matrix equation $XAX^{T}=A$ for unknown $X$ (not necessarily symmetric). Clearly, setting $X$ equal to the identity matrix solves the equation, but I was…
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Rotation Matrix inverse using Gauss-Jordan elimination

I'd like to calculate the inverse of a rotation matrix, let take the simplest case which is a $2$ x $2$ rotation matrix: $R =\begin{bmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\[0.3em] \sin \theta & \cos \theta \end{bmatrix}$ I know that the inverse is the…
jtimz
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Why are cluster co-occurrence matrices positive semidefinite?

A cluster (aka a partition) co-occurrence matrix $A$ for $N$ points $\{x_1, \dots x_n\}$ is an $N\times N$ matrix that encodes a partitioning of these points into $k$ separate clusters ($k\ge 1$) as follows: $A(i,j) = 1$ if $x_i$ and $x_j$ belong to…
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A question about Golden - Thompson inequality

Given two hermitian matrices $A$ and $B$, the Golden - Thompson inequality states: $$tr\left(e^{(A+B)}\right)\le tr\left(e^Ae^B\right)$$ My question is: when the two traces are equal? Thanks.
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"If $A^2-2AB+B^2=0$, then $(A-B)^2=0$" is true. How about $n$-th degree case?

I've known the following question: Supposing that $A, B$ are the second degree square matrices whose elements are all complex numbers, then is the following true ? If $A^2-2AB+B^2=O,$ then $(A-B)^2=O$ where $O$ is a zero matrix. Surprisingly, the…
mathlove
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How to find all $2 \times 2$ matrices whose $4^{\text{th}}$ power is the identity matrix but its lower powers are not?

Question. To put the question in another way, let $G$ be the set of all invertible linear maps of $\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R}^2$, and it is not hard to show that $G$ is a group under composition, and the question asks for those elements of $G$ which…
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$A^TA+I$ is always invertible?

How to prove a general matrix invertible given by as below? How to prove that $A^TA+I$ is always invertible for $\forall A \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$?
wanyancan
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Showing that if an equation has a unique solution for one variable, then it has unique solutions for all.

I have a problem and a proposed solution. Please tell me if I'm correct. Problem: Let $A$ be a square matrix. Show that if the system $AX=B$ has a unique solution for some particular column vector B, then it has a unique solution for all…
user85362
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Find the determinant by using elementary row operations

I'm having a problem finding the determinant of the following matrix using elementary row operations. I know the determinant is -15 but confused on how to do it using the elementary row operations. Here is the matrix $$\begin{bmatrix} 2 & 3 & 10 …
Tom
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Be $M \in M_2(\mathbb{R})$ with $det(M) = 1$

Be $M \in M_2(\mathbb{R})$ with $\det(M) = 1$ If $|\text{tr}(M)| < 2$, Prove that exist $P \in M_2(\mathbb{R})$ with $\det(P)=1$ and exist $\alpha \in \mathbb{R}$ such that: $ M = P\cdot \begin{bmatrix} \cos(\alpha) & -\sin(\alpha) \\ \sin(\alpha)…
HZLJ
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A question on the trace of a matrix

Let $f$ be a smooth function on $\mathbb{R}^d$. We write $\nabla^2f$ for the Hessian matrix of $f$. For $x \in \mathbb{R}^d$, we write $\{a_j(x)\}_{j=1}^d$ for the eigenvalue of $\nabla^2 f(x)$. Then, we have \begin{align*} \Delta…
sharpe
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Solving a simple matrix multiplication/evaluation problem in a shorter/simpler way

I've solved the following problem by calculating matrix A's entries as variables and then evaluating them using the system of linear equations. As I'm a bit new to matrices, I wanted to know whether there are shorter ways to solving this problem…
JOUA
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Given a triangle with points in $\mathbb{R}^3$, find the coordinates of a point perpendicular to a side

Consider the triangle ABC in $\mathbb{R}^3$ formed by the point $A(3,2,1)$, $B(4,4,2)$, $C(6,1,0)$. Find the coordinates of the point $D$ on $BC$ such that $AD$ is perpendicular to $BC$. I believe this uses projections, but I can't seem to get…
user73229
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Square of sum of matrices

I'm trying to follow these lecture notes on Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) but I can't seem to figure out how the author gets from: $$ \Sigma_{x\epsilon\omega_{i}} (w^{T}x - w^{T}\mu_{i})^2$$ to $$ \Sigma_{x\epsilon\omega_{i}}…
jessems
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Upper Triangular Matrix with zeros up

I have a linear algebra homework, but honestly I'vee been trying to solve this problem for some days without success: Suppose T $\in$ $M_{5 \times 5}$ (K) is a triangulable matrix. Be $\beta = \{ \vec{v_1}, \vec{v_2}, \vec{v_3}, \vec{v_4}, \vec{v_5}…