Solving Systems of Linear Equations Using Matrices PDF
Solving Systems of Linear Equations Using Matrices PDF
Solving Systems of Linear Equations Using Matrices PDF
Hi there! This page is only going to make sense if you know a little about Systems of Linear Equations and Matrices, so please go and learn about those if you don't know them already!
The Example
One of the last examples on Systems of Linear Equations was this one:
Example: Solve
x+y +z =6 2y + 5z = -4 2x + 5y - z = 27
We then went on to solve it using "elimination" ... but we could have solved it using Matrices! Using Matrices makes life easier because you can use a computer program (such as the Matrix Calculator) to do all the "number crunching". First, we need to write the question in Matrix form.
In Matrix Form?
OK. A Matrix is an array of numbers, right?
A Matrix
Well, think about the equations: x 2x + + y 2y 5y + + z 5z z = = = 6 -4 27
We could even separate the numbers before and after the "=" into: 1 0 2 Now it looks like we have 2 Matrices. In fact we have a third one, which is [x y z], and the way that matrices are multipled (read How to Multiply Matrices) means we need to set it up like this: 1 2 5 1 5 -1 and 6 -4 27
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And we know that x + y + z = 6, etc, so we can write the system of equations like this:
AX = B
Where
Then (as shown on the Inverse of a Matrix page) the solution is this:
X = A-1B
(Assuming we can calculate the Inverse Matrix A-1) In fact I get this (you can use the Matrix Calculator):
(I left the 1/determinant outside the matrix to make the numbers simpler) Then multiply
x = 5, y = 3 and z = -2
Just like on the Systems of Linear Equations page. Quite neat and elegant, and the human does the thinking while the computer does the calculating.
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XA = B
And because of the way that matrices are multipled we need to set up the matrices differently now. The rows and columns have to be switched over ("transposed"):
And
X = BA-1
This is what I get for
A-1:
In fact it is just like the Inverse we got before, but Transposed (rows and columns swapped over). Next we multiply
B by A-1:
x = 5, y = 3 and z = -2
It didn't look as neat as the previous solution, but it does show you that there is more than one way to set up and solve matrix equations. Just be careful about your rows and columns!
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