Math 2270 - Lecture 27 : Calculating

Determinants
Dylan Zwick

Fall 2012

This lecture covers section 5.2 from the textbook.

In the last lecture we stated and discovered a number of properties
about determinants. However, we didn’t talk much about how to calculate
them. In fact, the only general formula was the nasty formula mentioned
at the beginning, namely

X n
Y
det(A) = sgn(σ) aiσ(i) .
σ∈Sn i=1

We also learned a formula for calculating the determinant in a very

special case. Namely, if we have a triangular matrix, the determinant is
just the product of the diagonals.
Today, we’re going to discuss how that special triangular case can be
used to calculate determinants in a very efficient manner, and we’ll derive
the nasty formula. We’ll also go over one other way of calculating a deter-
minnat, the “cofactor expansion”, that, to be honest, is not all that useful
computationally, but can be very useful when you need to prove things.
The assigned problems for this section are:

Section 5.2 - 1, 3, 11, 15, 16

1
1 Calculating the Determinant from the Pivots
In practice, the easiest way to calculate the determinant of a general matrix
is to use elimination to get an upper-triangular matrix with the same de-
terminant, and then just calculate the determinant of the upper-triangular
matrix by taking the product of the diagonal terms, a.k.a. the pivots.
If there are no row exchanges required for the LU decomposition of A,
then A = LU, and det(A) = det(L)det(U). Both L and U are triangular, and
all the terms on the diagonal of L are 1, so det(L) = 1. The terms on the
diagonal of U, d1 , d2 , . . . , dn , are the pivots, and det(U) = d1 d2 · · · dn . So,
det(A) = d1 · · · dn . If a permutation is necessary then we have P A = LU,
and det(P ) = ±1. So, in general, det(A) = ±d1 · · · dn where the sign is
determined by the permutation matrix P .
Example - Use elimination to calculate the determinant of the matrix
 
2 4 −2
A= 4 9 −3 
−2 −3 7

Now, if no permutation is involved, so A = LU, then the first k pivots

are completely determined by the upper left k × k submatrix of the matrix
A. If we denote the upper left k × k submatrix of A by Ak then we have

2
 det(Ak ) = d1 · · · dk

and the kth pivot is

det(Ak )
dk = .
det(Ak−1 )

So, we can use pivots to calculate determinants, but we can also (as-
suming we don’t need row exchanges) use determinants to calculate piv-
ots!

2 The Big Honkin’ Formula

Alright, it’s been coming for a while now. The formal definition of the
determinant is

X n
Y
det(A) = sgn(σ) aiσ(i) .
σ∈Sn i=1

How do we get this? Well, let’s start with the 2 × 2 case. We can use
linearity twice to get:

     
 a b   a 0   0 b 
 = + 
 c d   c d   c d 
       
 a 0   a 0   0 b   0 b 
=  + + + 
c 0   0 d   c 0   0 d 

In the final sum, the first and last matrices have columns with all 0s,
and so those determinants are 0. Therefore, the determinant is
       
 a 0   0 b
 = ad  1 0  + bc  0 1
    
 +  = ad − bc.
 0 d   c 0   0 1   1 0 

3
  
 0 1 
Now, we know   = −1 as its formed by switching (transposing)
1 0 
columns 1 and 2 of the identity matrix. So, by properties 1 and 2 of the
determinant, its value must be −1.
Now, we can do essentially the same thing for a square matrix of any
size. In the n = 3 case we split it up into 33 = 27 matrices where for each
matrix in the split each row has only one non-zero term. If a column choice
is repeated, the the matrix has determinant 0. So, the only ones that matter
are when the nonero terms come from different columns. For the 3 ×3 case
there are six such terms:
       
 a11 a12 a13   a11   a12   a13 
      
 a21 a22 a23  =  a22 + a23
 +  a21 
       
 a31 a32 a33   a33   a31   a32 
     
 a11   a12   a13 
     
+  a23  +  a21
 
+
  a22 

 a32   a33   a31 

Using linearity we can write this as

     
 1   1   1 
    
det(A) = a11 a22 a33  1  + a12 a23 a31 
  1  + a13 a21 a32  1 

 1   1   1 
     
 1   1   1 
    
+a11 a23 a32  1  + a12 a21 a33  1  + a13 a22 a31 
  1 

 1   1   1 

Each of the matrices above is a permutation matrix. The first is the

identity. The second and third we can get from the identity with two row
switches (for the second matrix the row switches are rows 1 and 3, then
rows 1 and 2), and the fourth, fifth, and sixth we can get from the identity
with one row switch. So, the determinants of the first three are +1, and the
determinants of the last three are −1. Therefore, the determinant formula
for a 3 × 3 matrix is:

a11 a22 a33 + a12 a23 a31 + a13 a21 a32 − a11 a23 a32 − a12 a21 a33 − a13 a22 a31 .

4
 Now, the sign of a permutation σ is the parity of the number of transpo-
sitions required to get it from the identity. It is either even of odd. We say
sgn(σ) = ±1 depending on if it requires an even or odd number of tran-
positions to get it from the identity. The sign of the first three permutation
matrices above are all +1, as they require an even number of tranpositions
(0, 2, and 2), while the sign of the last three permutation matrices are all
−1, as they require an odd number of transpositions (1,1, and 1). If P is a
permutation matrix coming from the permutation σ, then det(P ) = sgn(σ),
and from this we get our big formula:

X n
Y
det(A) = sgn(σ) aiσ(i) .
σ∈Sn i=1

Note that there are n! permutations in Sn , and so as n gets larger this

formula gets very big very fast.
Example - Use the big formula to calculate the determinant of the matrix

 
2 4 −2
A= 4 9 −3 
−2 −3 7

5
3 Determinants by Cofactors
Finally, we note that if we do some algebra to the formula derived above
for the 3 × 3 determinant we get:

det(A) = a11 (a22 a33 − a23 a32 ) − a12 (a23 a31 − a21 a33 ) + a13 (a21 a32 − a22 a31 ).

The terms in parentheses are the determinants

     
 a22 a23   a21 a23   a21 a22 
 ,  ,  
 a32 a33   a31 a33   a31 a32 

respectively. The matrices are the matrices we get from A if we elimi-

nate column 1 and row 1, column 2 and row 1, and column 3 and row 1,
respectively.
For a matrix A, we denote by Mij the submatrix acquired by eliminat-
ing row i and column j. We define the cofactor Cij = (−1)i+j det(Mij ). So,
in the 3 × 3 case above, we have

det(A) = a11 C11 + a12 C12 + a13 C13 .

And, in fact, this formula holds for any row and for any n × n matrix
A.

det(A) = ai1 Ci1 + ai2 Ci2 + · · · + ain Cin .

We can also use the formula moving down a column instead of along
a row

det(A) = a1j C1j + a2j C2j + · · · + anj Cnj .

6
 Example - For the matrix

 
2 4 −2
A= 4 9 −3 
−2 −3 7

calculate the determinant using a cofactor expansion along the first

row, and then do it again with a cofactor expansion along the second col-
umn.