Tutorial 3
Practice exercises
Do these practice exercises in SOWISO Tutorial 3 to get feedback:
1. Find the inverse of the matrices below, if they exist.
! ! 1 0 −2 1 2 −1
1 −3 3 6
−3 1 4 −4 −7 3
4 −9 4 7
2 −3 4 −2 −6 4
! ! !
1 2 −1 0
2. Let A = , B1 = , B2 = . Find A−1 , and use it to solve the two equations
5 12 3 0
AX = B1 AX = B2 ,
!
x1
where X = .
x2
3. Let A and B be 4 × 4 matrices, with det A = −1 and det B = 2. Compute:
(a) det(AB) (b) det(B5 ) (c) det(2A) (d) det(AT A) (e) det(B−1 AB)
4. Compute the determinants of the matrices below.
! 3 0 4 0 5 1
1 2
2 3 2 4 −3 0
−1 1
0 5 −1 2 4 1
a b c
5. Suppose det d e f = 7. Calculate the following determinants:
g h i
a b c
(a) det d e f
5g 5h 5i
a b c
(b) det g h i
d e f
g h i
(c) det a b c
d e f
a+d b+e c+ f
(d) det d e f
g h i
Problems
1. (a) An m × n upper triangular matrix is one whose entries below the main diagonal are 0’s. Argue
without using determinants that if a square upper triangular matrix has all diagonal entries different
from zero, then it is invertible.
(b) Classify each of the matrices below as invertible or non-invertible without using determinants and
without doing any computation, but only giving an argument based on some readily seen property of
the matrix.
0 0 0 −1
−5 1 4 2 8 3 1 0 1
4 0 0 0
0 1 2 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 2 0 0
0 0 8 1 4 9 1 0 1
0 0 1 0
a 1 −1
2. Find the values of a for which the following matrix is invertible: 0 −a 2 .
1 4 3
3. Let
0 1 0 6 3 5 2 9
2 0 3 8 2 8 0 0
B= , C=
−3 0 −1 0
0 0 4 2
0 0 0 4 9 0 0 0
Find det(B2C−1 ).
4. (Midterm 2023) Let k ∈ R. Consider the linear system
x1 − x2 + x3 = k,
x1 + kx2 + x3 = 1,
kx1 + x2 = 1.
(a) Determine the values of k for which the linear system has a unique solution.
(b) Choose a value of k for which the system has a unique solution and then solve the system.
(c) Study the cases for which the system does not have a unique solution. When is it inconsistent, when
does it have infinitely many solutions?
5* Let A, B,C be n × n matrices. Prove that if A is invertible, then AB = AC ⇒ B = C and AB = 0 ⇒ B = 0. Is
it possible for AB to be invertible if A is not?
