Recent content by Bluesman01

Ah I see it now. Thanks to all who replied.

But if the multiplicity of either eigenvalue is more than one, D changes form. Both P and D do. That's where I got stuck.

Suppose A is a diagonlizable nxn matrix where 1 and -1 are the only eigenvalues (algebraic multiplicity is not given). Compute A^2. The only thing I could think to do with this question is set A=PD(P^-1) (definition of a diagonalizable matrix) and then A^2=(PD(P^-1))(PD(P^-1))=P(D^2)(P^-1)...