Math 251 - Alexiades
Review for Exam 1
know and understand concepts / definitions / main results
Concepts
  • matrix operations, elementary row operations, REF, RREF, rank
  • transpose, diagonal, triangular, symmetric matrices
  • invertible matrix; Fundamental Thm for Square Matrices
  • determinant, cofactors, adjoint of A
  • vectors in ℝn: operations, norm, unit vectors, dot product
  • parallel vectors, orthogonal vectors
    Precise definition of
  • elementary matrix, AT, equal matrices, row-equivalent matrices
  • symmetric matrix   ( AT=A )
  • invertible n×n matrix A     ( ∃ n×n matrix A-1 such that A-1A = AA-1 = I )
  • det(A) ( = sum of all signed elementary products from A )
  • eigenvalue of A   ( is a scalar λ such that Ax = λx for some non-zero vector x )
  • eigenvector of A   ( is a non-zero vector x such that Ax = λx for some scalar λ )
  • norm axioms
  • orthogonal vectors   (uv   means u · v = 0 )
    Methods: Know How To
  • write a linear m×n system in matrix form: Ax=b
  • Gauss elimination: reduce m×n matrix A to row-echelon form; find rank
  • Gauss-Jordan elimination: reduce m×n A to reduced row-echelon form; find rank
  • decide consistency of m×n system Ax = b ; solve Ax = b by Gauss elimination and by LU factorization of A
  • find A-1 by Gauss elimination (on [ A | I ]), and by LU factorization of A
  • find determinant by cofactor expansion
  • find eigenvalues and eigenvectors
  • vector operations, find length and direction (unit vector) of a vector
    Basic / crucial results to know
  • properties of transpose, of inverse, of determinant
  • Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality (Thm 3.2.4)
  • Fundamental Theorem for square matrices:   (8 equivalent statements so far)
            For a square n×n matrix A, the following are equivalent:
          1. A is invertible
          2. A In   (i.e. A is row equivalent to the Identity)
          3. A is expressible as a product of elementary matrices
          4. rank(A) = n
          5. the homogeneous system Ax = 0 has only the trivial solution
          6. the nonhomogeneous system Ax = b has unique solution for any vector bRn
          7. det(A) 0
          8. λ = 0 is not an eigenvalue of A