Chapter - 19

Matrices and Determinants

*Q.37 Which of the following is(are) NOT the square of a 3 3 matrix with
real entries?

1 0 0 1 0 0
(A) 0 1 0 (B) 0 1 0
0 0 1 0 0 1

1 0 0 1 0 0
(C) 0 1 0 (D) 0 1 0
0 0 1 0 0 1

[JEE Advanced 2017]

Sol. A, B

It is tempting to apply brute force method by taking a matrix A with

unknown real entries

a11 a12 a13

A a21 a22 a23

a31 a32 a33

and equate A2 with the options. But it is not easy to do so with the
many unknowns. So lets use the idea that det A2 det A and
2

since A has real entries, det A

det A 2 has to be non-negative. The determinant of a diagonal

d1 0 0
matrix D 0 d 2 0 is given by det D d1d2d3

0 0 d3

In option (A), determinant 1 , so it cannot be square of a 3 3 real

matrix.

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 Similarly in (B), determinant 1, so it cannot be the square of 3 3
real matrix.

In option (C), it can be taken as the square of I 3 where I 3 is the

identity matrix of order 3 .

In option (D), the determinant is positive, so it may be possible to find

a real matrix A such that

1 0 0
A 2 0 1 0

0 0 1

With some trial and error, we can find many such matrices A .

1 0 0
For eg: A 0 0 1

0 1 0

1 0 0
A 0 1 1

0 2 1

1 0 0
Here in this option, it is tempting to think that A 0 i 0 and
0 0 i
judge right away that no such real A exists. So this is a little tricky
problem, which involves some sort of option elimination and deeper
thinking. To summarize, in general a matrix can have several square
roots.

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