Review exercise 1.13. Given the following:
use the triangular systems and
to find a solution to
Answer: We have
Since and
we have
also. Since
we have
so that
We then have
Since and
we have
. We then have
so that
and
Note that is equal to the last column of the 3 by 3 identity matrix
. Since
is nonsingular we know that
exists, and since we have
we see that the solution
is equal to the last column of
.
NOTE: This continues a series of posts containing worked out exercises from the (out of print) book Linear Algebra and Its Applications, Third Edition by Gilbert Strang.
If you find these posts useful I encourage you to also check out the more current Linear Algebra and Its Applications, Fourth Edition, Dr Strang’s introductory textbook Introduction to Linear Algebra, Fourth Edition
and the accompanying free online course, and Dr Strang’s other books
.