PDA

View Full Version : Adjoints and Determinants Problem


CanadianEh
Dec16-09, 03:38 PM
I need help with this problem, i am totally lost. See attachment. Please explain.

VeeEight
Dec16-09, 04:02 PM
What have you tried so far? Perhaps use the famous formula that A-1=[1/det(A)]adj(A).
Also note that det(adj(A)) = det(A)n-1 where n is the size of A

jegues
Dec16-09, 10:37 PM
You need to think about what the adjoint of A is...

The adjoint of A is simply the matrix of cofactors.

So if you took matrix A and did an expansion across the 3rd row to compute its determinant what are you really doing?

Well you're taking the entries 3, -1, -1, multiplying each of them by their respected cofactors and summing them to get the determinant.

How can you relate the desired cofactors to the adjoint? (I stated the answer above)