General Mathematics and Biostatistics VU

o Matrix Multiplication: Given an r x c matrix A and an s x d matrix B, we can multiply

A with B to form the matrix AB if c = s. The resulting matrix will have dimension r x
d.
To multiply two matrices, we multiply each row in the first matrix by each column in
the second matrix. An example is shown below:
a a  b b b 
A =  11 12  B = b11 b12 b13 
a a
 21 22   21 22 23 
, ,
We can multiply to form the matrix C = AB since the number of columns of A is
equal to the number of rows of B. The multiplication is carried out as follows:

a b + a b a b + a b a b + a b 
C = AB =  a11 b11 + a12 b21 a11 b12 + a12 b22 a 11b13 + a 12b23

 21 11 22 21 21 12 22 22 21 13 22 23 

o Example:
2 3
1 1 1 
A = 1 1  and B =  
  1 0 2
1 0 
(2)(1) + (3)(1) = 5 (2)(1) + (3)(0) = 2 (2)(1) + (3)(2) = 8  5 2 8
C = AB = (1)(1) + (1)(1) = 2 (1)(1) + (1)(0) = 1 (1)(1) + (1)(2) = 3  =  2 1 3 
 (1)(1) + (0)(1) = 1 (1)(1) + (0)(0) = 1 (1)(1) + (0)(2) = 1  1 1 1

  
• Definition: A Square matrix with ones on the diagonal and zeros elsewhere is called an
identity matrix. It is denoted by I.

• Example: The 4 x 4 identity matrix is:

1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
I = 
0 0 1 0
 
0 0 0 1

• Definition: Given a square matrix B, if there exists a matrix D such that BD = DB = I, then D
is called the inverse of B, and is denoted by D = B-1.

• Given a system of equations a x =b

j =1
ij j i , it can be written as a matrix equation Ax = b ,
where A is the matrix of the coefficients, is the column matrix of the variables and is the
column matrix of the constants. i.e. a11 a12 ... a1n 
a a ... a
A =  21 22 2n 
 .................... 
a a ... a
 m1 m2 mn 

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General Mathematics and Biostatistics VU

If A-1 exists then the system has a unique solution given by x = A−1b
• Definition: A matrix is in echelon form if it has the following properties
o Every non-zero row begins with a 1 (called a leading 1)
o Every leading one in a lower row is further to the right of the leading one above it.
o If there are zero rows, they are at the end of the matrix

A matrix is in reduced echelon form if in addition to the above three properties it also has
the following property:
o Every other entry in a column containing a leading one is zero

• Methods for finding Solutions of Equations:

o Using Row Operations: Recall that when we are solving simultaneous equations, the
system of equations remains unchanged if we perform the following operations:

 Multiply an equation by a non-zero constant

 Add a multiple of one equation to another equation
 Interchange two equations.

We have seen that any system of equations can be written as a matrix system. i.e. the
two systems are equivalent.
So, given a system Ax = b we can form the augmented matrix (Ab) by attaching an
additional column at the end of the matrix A with entries from matrix b. Since the
original system of equations remains unchanged as described above, the system
described by the augmented matrix (Ab) also remains unchanged under the following
row operations:

 Multiply a row by a non-zero constant

 Add a multiple of one row to another row
 Interchange two rows.

Using row operations, we will change the matrix (Ab) to an Echelon form or a
reduced Echelon form. Once that is achieved, the solution will be easily found.

Example: Solve the following system of equations:

x + 2y + z =1
2x + 2 y = 2
3x + 5 y + 4z = 1
Solution: The system can be written in matrix form as:
1 2 1  x  1
    
 2 2 0   y  = 2 
3 5 4 z  1
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The augmented matrix is

1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1  R23 1 2 1 1
R2 −2 R1    
 
( Ab) = 2 2 0 2 ~ 0 −2 −2 0  ~ 0 −1 1 −2
 R −3R
3 5 4 1 3 1 0 −1 1 −2 0 −2 −2 0 
1 2 1 1 1 0 3 −3 1 0 3 −3
− R2 R1 −2 R2 − R3 /4
     
~ 0 1 −1 2 ~ 0 1
R +2 R
−1 2  ~ 0 1 −1 2
0 −2 −2 0 3 2 0 0 −4 4  0 0 1 −1

R1 −3R3
1 0 0 0
~ 0 1 0 1

R2 + R3
0 0 1 −1
This gives the solution: x = 0, y = 1, z = -1

o Solving Equations using Inverse: If we could find A-1, we could also solve the system
by using x = A−1b. One way to find inverse is as follows:

o Theorem: Given a nxn matrix A, if the augmented matrix (AI), where I is the nxn
identity matrix, can be row reduced to a matrix (IB), then B is the inverse of A. If (AI)
cannot be reduced to (IB), then A does not have an inverse.

o Example: Solve the system of equations:

2x − 2 y + 2z = 1
2y− z =1
2x + 3y = −1

Solution: The matrix A of the coefficients is

2 −2 2 
0 2 −1
 
2 3 0 
To find A-1 we use the above theorem
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