Introduction to Matlab 2

Vectors and Matrices

Omed Ghareb Abdullah

Sulaimani University
College of Sciences
Physics Department

Everything in MATLAB is a matrix !

1
Array Operations 
[] Array
y constructor
[ ] Brackets are used to form vectors and matrices.
Example:
A = [ 2 3.5 -5 4 36 7 4 21]
indicate that A is an array of 7 elements also the above can be
written as
A = [ 2 , 3.5 , -5 , 4 , 36 , 7 , 4 , 21]
separating elements with comma or space, and resulting
2 3.5 -5 4 36 7 4 21
3

Vectors and Matrices
y Vectors (arrays) are defined as

y >> v = [1,
[1 2,
2 4, 5]
]
y >> w = [1; 2; 4; 5]

y Matrices (2D arrays) defined similarly

y >> A = [1,2,3;4,-5,6;5,-6,7]
Coll 1

Col 3
Col 2

⎡1 2 3 ⎤ Row 1

A = ⎢⎢4 − 5 6⎥⎥ Row 2

⎢⎣5 − 6 7 ⎥⎦ Row 3
4

2
 The Colon (:) Operator
1:10 ==>
> [1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10]
0:10:50 ==> [0 , 10 , 20 , 30 , 40 , 50]
0:pi/4:pi ==> [0 , 0.7854 , 1.5708 , 2.3562 , 3.1416]

Long Array, Matrix 
y >> t =1:10
t=
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

y >> k =2:-0.5:-1
k=
2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1

y >> x = [1:4; 5:8]

x=
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
6

3
 Creating Arrays
y A semicolon as punctuation in the square bracket
operator tells MATLAB to start a new row
>> A = [1, 2, 3; 10, 20, 30]

y linspace and the colon operator can be used to

create vectors that are subsequently composed into
an array:
>> A = [1:3:15; linspace(0,1,5)]
or…
>> A = [(1:3:15)', linspace(0,1,5)']

Addition / subtraction of two vectors
>> v1 = [ 1,
1 3,
3 4]
>> v2 = [ 2, 5, 3 ]
>> v1 + v2
>> v11 – v22
Cn×m = An×m + Bn×m
cij = aij + bij
8

4
Scalar multiplication of a vector
>> v = [ 2,
2 3,
3 4]
>> k = 10
>> k * v
ans =
20 30 40
9

Dot & Cross product
>> u = [2 4 7]
>> v = [10 20 30]
>>w = cross(u, v)
>>w = dot(u, v)

v α
w v.w = ( x1 , x2 ).( y1 , y2 ) = x1 y1 + x2 . y2
10

5
Matrix Index
Indexing using parentheses
y>> A(2,3)
A(2 3)

Index submatrices using vectors
of row and column indices 
y>> A([2 3],[1 2])

O de g o d ces s po a !
Ordering of indices is important!
y>> B=A([3 2],[2 1])
y>> B=[A(3,2),A(3,1);A(2,2);A(2,1)]

11

Matrix Index
Index complete row or column using 
the colon operator 
p
y>> A(1,:)

Can also add limit index range
y>> A(1:2,:)
y>> A([1 2],:)

General notation for colon operator
y>> v=1:5
y>> w=1:2:5

12

6
 Matrix Index
⎡5 4 7 6⎤
⎢8 9 1 0⎥⎥
A=⎢
⎢1 2 8 1⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣7 4 5 3⎦

How can we extract the collection of numbers in the dotted box?

That is,
is the numbers in the 1st through 3rd rows,
rows 2nd through 4th columns…
columns

Specify the row and column numbers by counting them…

A(1:3, 2:4)

13

Matrix Index
The Matrix in MATLAB

Columns
( )
(n)
1 2 3 4 5
A= 4
1
10
6
1
11
6
16
2
21
A (2,4)
1
2 7 12 17 22
2 8 1.2 9 4 25

Rows (m) 3 7.2 3 5 8

7 13
1 18
11 23 A (17)
4 0 4
0.5 9 4 14
5 19
56 24
Rectangular Matrix:
5 10 15 20 25
5 23 83 13 0 10 Scalar: 1-by-1 array
Vector: m-by-1 array
1-by-n array
Matrix: m-by-n array
14

7
 Matrix Index
y The matrix indices begin from 1 (not 0 (as in C))
y The matrix indices must be positive integer
Given:

A(-2), A(0)
Error: ??? Subscript indices must either be real positive integers or logicals.

A(4,2)
Error: ??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions.
15

Concatenation of Matrices
y >> x = [1 2], y = [3 4], z=[ 0 0]

y >> A = [ x y]
1 2 3 4

y >> B = [x ; y]
1 2
3 4

y >> A = 1:4
A = 1 2 3 4
y >> C= repmat(A,3,2)
REPMAT: Replicate and tile an array.
C = [x y ;z]
Error:??? Error using ==> vertcat CAT arguments dimensions are not consistent.16

8
 MATLAB Function Reference  
disp: (Description) Display text or array
>>disp(A)
displays an array, without printing the array name. If A
contains a text, the string is displayed. Another way to
display an array on the screen is to type its name, but this
prints a leading “A=" which is not always desirable.
>> disp('The Result is'),disp(A)
The Result is
1 2 3
4 -5 6
5 -6 7 17

Built‐in Functions and Operators
y The same types in Vectors exist – with new possibilities

>> D = [5,10, 15; 20,25,30;35,40,45]

>> sumOverColumns = sum(D,1)

>>sum(D)

>> sumOverRows = sum(D,2)

>>sum(D’)’

Sum of diagonal elements:

>> trace(D) 18

9
 Built‐in Functions end and size
y Create an array A by the following:

>> A = [1
[1,2,3,4;
2 3 4 10
10,11,12,13;
11 12 13 20
20, 21
21,22,23]
22 23]
y Replace the last and next to last row/column
elements with [100, 101; 200, 201]
>> A(end-1:end,end-1:end) = [100, 101; 200, 201]
y For vectors, we had length to return the number of
elements.
y For arrays, size built-in function is used: numRow=
3
>> [numRows, numCols] = size(A) numCols=
4

19

Max & Min
Largest component of a matrix A
>> max(A)
(A)
20 21 200 201
>> max(A’)’
4
101
201
>> min(A)
>> min(A’)’
>> min(A,[],1) Smallest component of a matrix A
>> min(A,[],2)

20

10
 Mean & Length
Average or mean value of a matrix A
>> mean(A)
10.3333 11.3333 101.0000 102.0000
>> mean(A’)’
2.5000
55.5000
110 5000
110.5000
>> length(A)
Length of vector: The statement length(A) is equivalent to
max(size(A)) for nonempty arrays and 0 for empty arrays.
4
21

Matrix Multiplication

m
Cn× p = An×m Bm× p cij = ∑ aik bkj An×n Bn×n ≠ Bn×n An×n
k =1 22

11
 Matrices Operations

Gi
Given A and
d B:
B

Addition Subtraction Product

23

Deleting Rows and Columns
You can delete rows and columns from a matrix using just a pair of square
brackets. Start with
>>A = [ 16 3 2 13
5 10 11 8
9 6 7 12
4 15 14 1 ];
Then, to delete the second column of A, use
>>A(:,2) = [ ]
This changes A to:

24

12
 Operators (Element by Element)
¾ .* Element-by-element multiplication
¾ ./ Element-by-element division
¾ .\ Element-by-element left division
¾ .^ Element-by-element power

>> a .* b
ans =
0 5 5 2
>> a ./ b
ans =
0 0.2000 5.0000 0.5000 25

The use of “.” – “Element” Operation
A = [1 2 3; 5 1 4; 3 2 1]
A=
1 2 3
5 1 4
3 2 -1

x = A(1,:) y = A(3 ,:) b = x .* y c=x./y d = x .^2

x= y= b= c= d=
1 2 3 3 4 -1 3 8 -3 0.33 0.5 -3 1 4 9

K= x^2
Erorr: ??? Error using ==> ^ Matrix must be square.
B=x*y
Erorr: ??? Error using ==> * Inner matrix dimensions must agree. 26

13
 The Transpose Operator
The transpose
p operator
p is used to flip
p an array.
y
Examples :
y More formally, if A is an NxM ⎡1 4⎤
⎡1 0 − 7 ⎤
vector, then A' will be an MxN If A = ⎢ ⎥ then T ⎢
A = ⎢ 0 15⎥⎥
⎣4 15 2 ⎦ ⎢⎣− 7 2 ⎥⎦
array whose elements are
⎡2⎤
defined byy A'(i,j)
( j) = A(j,i).
(j )
If B = ⎢⎢4⎥⎥ then
h BT = [2 4 6]
y The effect of applying the ⎢⎣6⎥⎦
transpose operator to an array is ⎡ 1 2 3⎤ ⎡1 4 7⎤
If C = ⎢⎢4 5 6⎥⎥ then C T = ⎢⎢2 5 8 ⎥⎥
to flip rows and columns.
⎣⎢7 8 9⎥⎦ ⎣⎢3 6 9 ⎥⎦

27

The Transpose Operator
>> A = [1,2,3,4; 10,11,12,13; 20, 21,22,23]
>> T= A
A’
y The effect of applying the transpose operator to an array is to flip
rows and columns.

Tm×n = AT n×m tij = a ji

If AT = A A is symmetric
Transponate conjugates complex entries; avoided by
y >> T=A.’ 28

14
 Flip Matrix
flip matrix about vertical axes:
>> B=fliplr(A)

flip matrix about horizontal axes:

>> C=flipud(A)

29

Matrix Left Division
y A linear system of equations can be modeled as:

3x + 2 y − z = 10 ⎡ 3 2 − 1⎤ ⎡ x ⎤ ⎡10 ⎤
− x + 3y + 2z = 5 ⇒ ⎢− 1 3 2 ⎥ × ⎢ y ⎥ = ⎢ 5 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
x − y − z = −1 ⎢⎣ 1 − 1 − 1⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ z ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣− 1⎥⎦

In other words…
v v v v v v
Ax = y ⇒ x = A −1 y ⇒ x=A\y
30

15
Solutions to Systems of Linear Equations
y Solution by Matrix Inverse: y Solution by left division:

>> a = [ 3 2 -1; -1 3 2; 1 -1 -1]; >> a = [ 3 2 -1; -1 3 2; 1 -1 -1];

>> b = [ 10; 5; -1]; >> b = [ 10; 5; -1];
>> x = inv(a)*b >> x = a\b
x= x=
-2.0000 -2.0000
5.0000 5.0000
-6.0000 -6.0000

Answer: Answer:
x1 = -2, x2 = 5, x3 = -6 x1 = -2, x2 = 5, x3 = -6

NOTE: left division: A\B Î B ÷ A right division: A/B Î A ÷ B

31

Matrix Functions
y The square root of the elements of A:
>> As=sqrt(A)

y The matrix exponential of A:

>> As=sqrtm(A)

y The exponential of the elements of A:

>> As=exp(A)

y The principal square root of the matrix A:

>> As=expm(A)

y The natural logarithm of the elements of A:

>> As=log(A)

y The matrix logarithm of A:

>> As=sqrtm(A)
32

16
 Matrix Functions
Many elementary matrices predefined
y >> help elmat;
Elementary matrices.
matrices
zeros - Zeros array.
ones - Ones array.
eye - Identity matrix.
repmat - Replicate and tile array.
rand - Uniformly distributed random numbers. (0-1)
randn - Normally distributed random numbers.
linspace - Linearly spaced vector.
logspace - Logarithmically spaced vector.
freqspace - Frequency spacing for frequency response.
meshgrid - X and Y arrays for 3-D plots.
: - Regularly spaced vector and index into matrix.
33

Matrix Functions
Many elementary matrices predefined
y >> help elmat;
Basic array information.
information
size - Size of array.
length - Length of vector.
ndims - Number of dimensions.
numel - Number of elements.
disp - Display matrix or text.
isempty - True for empty array.
isequal - True if arrays are numerically equal.
isequalwithequalnans - True if arrays are numerically equal.
isnumeric - True for numeric arrays.
islogical - True for logical array.
logical - Convert numeric values to logical.
34

17
 Generating Vectors from functions
y eye(M) MxM matrix of eydentety x = eye(3,3)
x =
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 1

y eye(M,N) MxN matrix of eydentety

x = eye(3,4)
x =
1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0

IA = AI = A 35

Generating Vectors from functions
y zeros(M,N) MxN matrix of zeros x = zeros(1,3)
y zeros(M) MxM matrix of zeros x =
0 0 0

y ones(M,N) MxN matrix of ones

x = ones(1,3)
y ones(M) MxM matrix of ones
x =
1 1 1
y rand(M,N)
rand(M N) MxN matrix of uniformly 
distributed random        x = rand(1,3)
numbers on (0,1) x =
y rand(M,M)    MxM matrix  0.9501 0.2311 0.6068
rand Uniformly distributed random elements
randn Normally distributed random elements 36

18
 Eigenvalues
The eigenvalues of the matrix A is .
g( )
>> e = eig(A)
e=
34.0000
8.0000
0.0000
-8.0000

One of the eigenvalues is zero, which is another consequence of

singularity. The largest eigenvalue is 34,
37

Reduced row echelon form
R = rref(A) produces the reduced row echelon form of A using
Gauss Jordan elimination with partial pivoting.
A default tolerance of (max(size(A))*eps *norm(A,inf)) tests for
negligible column elements.
>> R=rref(A)
R=
1 0 0 1
0 1 0 -3
0 0 1 3
0 0 0 0
38

19
 Determination
A must be square
⎡a a12 ⎤ a11 a12
det ⎢ 11 = = a11a22 − a21a12
⎣a21 a22 ⎥⎦ a21 a22

⎡ a11 a12 a13 ⎤

det ⎢⎢a21 a23 ⎥⎥ = a11 22
a a23 a a23 a a22
a22 − a12 21 + a13 21
a32 a33 a31 a33 a31 a32
⎢⎣ a31 a32 a33 ⎥⎦

The determinant of this particular matrix happens to be zero,

indicating that the matrix is singular.
>> d = det(A)
d=
0 39

Determination
The determinant of this particular matrix happens to be zero,
indicating that the matrix is singular.
>> d = det(A)
d=
0
Since the matrix is singular, it does not have an inverse. If you try
to compute the inverse with

>> X = inv(A)
you will get a warning message
Warning: Matrix is close to singular or badly scaled.
Results may be inaccurate. RCOND = 9.796086e-018. 40

20
 Matrices: Magic Squares

This matrix is called a

“magic square”

Interestingly,
Durer also dated
this engraving
by placing 15
and 14 side-by-
side in the
magic square.

41

The magic Function
A = magic(3) B = magic(4)
A = B =
8 1 6 16 2 3 13
3 5 7 5 11 10 8
4 9 2 9 7 6 12
4 14 15 1
This is called a magic square because the sum of the elements in each column is the same.
>> sum(A)
15 15 15

And the sum of the elements in each row, obtained by transposing twice, is the same.
>> sum(A
sum(A')'
)
15
15
15

This is also a special magic square because the diagonal elements have the same sum.
>> sum(diag(A)) >> trace(A)
>> sum(diag(fliplr(A)))
15
42

21
 3D Matrices
>> c = [1 2 3; 4 5 6; 7 8 9;... >> d = reshape(c, 3,3,2) >> size(d)
2 2 2; 3 3 3; 4 4 4]’
d(:,:,1) = ans =
c= 3 3 2
1 4 7

1 4 7 2 3 4 2 5 8

2 5 8 2 3 4 3 6 9

3 6 9 2 3 4
d(:,:,2) =
RESHAPE:
>> size ( c) 2 3 4
2 3 4 Change size
3 6
2 3 4
43

3D Matrices

1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1

0 0 0 0 Page N
16 20 30 130 0
0 100 80 0
1 15 11
1 1
9 70 60 120 0
1 2 3 4
4 14 15 1
1 3 6 10
1 4 10 20

Page 1

44

22
Useful Matrix Functions
For complete list, see :

Help
MATLAB Help
Mathematics
Matrices and Linear Algebra
Function Summary

45

Graphics
>> x = 0:pi/20: 2*pi;
>> y = sin(x);
>> plot(x,y,’b-x’); % blue line, x’s
>> hold; % keep lines
>> z = cos(x);
>> plot(x,z,’r:+’); % dotted red, +’s
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8

-1

46
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

23