Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

MATH 4A - Linear Algebra with Applications

Lecture 12: Determinants, inverses and volume

26 April 2019

Reading: §3.3 from Lay, 5th ed.

Recommended problems from §3.3: 19, 21, 23, 25
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Lecture plan

1 Invertibility and determinants

2 Transpose and determinants

3 Determinants measure volume distortion

Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Recall: the better algorithm for computing det A

1 Apply the usual row reduction procedure to put A in any

echelon form E . Let N be the number of times you swapped
two rows, and let k1 , . . . , ks be the nonzero scalars you scaled
rows by (so s is the number of times you scaled a row).
2 The echelon form E = (eij ) is upper triangular, so

det E = e11 e22 · · · enn .

3 By the previous theorem,

det E e11 e22 · · · enn
det(A) = (−1)N = (−1)N .
k1 k2 · · · ks k1 k2 · · · ks
This algorithm is a much more efficient way to compute det A than
the cofactor expansion.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Example
Let’s use the row reduction algorithm to compute the determinant
of  
1 2 3
A =  −5 6 7 
9 10 −11
Our first step is to clear the entries below 1. We use the row
replacement operations R2 7→ R2 + 5R1 and R3 7→ R3 − 9R1 to get
 
1 2 3
 0 16 22 
0 −8 −38
Now clear the -8 using the 16 by performing the row replacement
operation R3 7→ R3 + 0.5R2 to get
 
1 2 3
 0 16 22 
0 0 −27
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

The matrix  
1 2 3
B =  0 16 22 
0 0 −27
is upper triangular, hence its determinant is

det B = 1 · 16 · (−27) = −432.

Since we only used row replacement to take A to B, A and B have

the same determinant:

det A = −432.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Can we understand invertibility in terms of determinants?

Recall that a n × n square matrix A is invertible if and only if it is

row equivalent to the identity matrix In . Of course, In is invertible
because
In In = In
implies (In )−1 = In . And because In is upper triangular, we can
compute that
det In = 1 · 1 · · · 1 = 1n = 1.
If A is invertible, when we row reduce A to In , we can replace rows,
scale rows by nonzero scalars k1 , . . . , ks , and swap rows N times.
Thus
det In 1
det A = (−1)N = (−1)N
k1 k2 · · · ks k1 k2 · · · ks
is not zero! In other words, if A is invertible, then det A 6= 0.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

A invertible is equivalent to det A 6= 0

In fact, we can easily argue the converse is true as well: if

det A 6= 0, then A is invertible. Why is this true? If det A 6= 0, then
the reduced echelon form of A must be In . If N is the number of
swaps and k1 , . . . , ks are the nonzero scalars used to row reduce A
to In , then
det In 1
det A = (−1)N = (−1)N 6= 0.
k1 · k2 · · · ks k1 · k2 · · · ks
Thus, we arrive at our promised generalization of what we already
knew about 2 × 2 matrices:
Theorem
A square matrix A is invertible if and only if det A 6= 0.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Determinant of A−1
Suppose A is invertible, and call the inverse A−1 . What is det A−1 ?

By definition of inverse, we know AA−1 = I . Thus, on one hand,

we know
det(AA−1 ) = det I = 1.
On the other hand, by the multiplicative property of the
determinant,
det(AA−1 ) = (det A)(det A−1 ).
Thus
(det A)(det A−1 ) = 1.
Since det A is nonzero, we can divide by it to conclude
1
det A−1 == (det A)−1 .
det A
In words: the determinant of the inverse is the inverse of the
determinant.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Transpose of a matrix

Given a m × n matrix A, the transpose of A is the n × m matrix,

denoted AT , whose columns are formed from the corresponding
rows of A.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Examples of transpose

Let
   
  4 2 5 0 0
a b

A= B = 9 1  C = 0 0 0 D =  2 4 0 
c d
0 3 −3 2 10

Then
   
    0 5 2 −3
a c 4 9 0
AT = BT = C T = 0 D T =  0 4 2 
b d 2 1 3
0 0 0 10
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Properties of transpose

Theorem
Let A and B denote two matrices whose sizes are appropriate for
the following sums or products
(a) (AT )T = A
(b) (A + B)T = AT + B T
(c) For any scalar r , (rA)T = rAT
(d) (AB)T = B T AT
(e) A is invertible if and only if AT is invertible.

In words, (d) says: the transpose of a product of matrices equals

the product of transposes in the reverse order.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Transposing row operations

If we perform a row operation on A, the transpose of this operation
becomes a column operation. For example, consider the matrix
 
5 2 −3
A= 0 4 2 
0 −8 6
The row operation R3 7→ R3 + 2R2 is implemented by
    
1 0 0 5 2 −3 5 2 −3
EA =  0 1 0  0 4 2 = 0 4 2 
0 2 1 0 −8 6 0 0 10
Compare this to (EA)T :
    
5 0 0 1 0 0 5 0 0
(EA)T = AT E T =  2 4 −8   0 1 2  =  2 4 0 
−3 2 6 0 0 1 −3 2 10
Its like we replaced Col3 by Col3 7→ Col3 + 2 · Col2 .
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Let’s make some observations:

1 The transpose E T of an elementary matrix E is still an

elementary matrix. Moreover, it is easy to check
det E = det E T .
2 Multiplying a matrix A on the right by an elementary matrix
E affects a column operation on A.
3 If E1 , . . . , EN are elementary matrices such that

EN EN−1 · · · E1 A

is upper triangular, then

(EN EN−1 · · · E1 A)T = AT E1T · · · EN−1

T
ENT

is lower triangular with the same diagonal entries.

Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Transpose and determinants

Combining the previous observations with the multiplicative

property of determinants, we arrive at
Theorem
For any matrix A, det AT = det A.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

2 × 2 matrices

Let  
a b
A= .
c d
We know det A = ad − bc, and det A 6= 0 if and only if A is
invertible. But what the heck is det A???

Answer: | det A| is the area of the parallelogram that is the image

of the unit square in R2 after applying the linear transformation A.
(See board for picture and sketch of proof using trigonometry.)
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Proof (using linear algebra)

Let’s deal with the less interesting case first: det A = 0. In this
case, A is not invertible, so the columns of A are linearly
dependent.

Geometrically, A takes all four vertices of the unit square in R2

onto a line in R2 . So the image of the unit square is “degenerate,”
meaning it is a parallelogram with height 0. Clearly such a
parallelogram has area 0.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Proof (using linear algebra)

Now suppose det A 6= 0. Observe that we can perform column

swaps and column replacements to make A equivalent to a
diagonal matrix  
e 0
D= .
0 f
(Why? Consider the row reduction algorithm for AT . We can put
AT in an echelon form without using any row scaling, only row
swaps and row replacements. Because AT is square and invertible,
the leading entries of an echelon form all lie on the diagonal. Then
use row replacement to eliminate the nonzero entries above the
leading entries. The result is diagonal. Taking the transpose of
everything gives a sequence of column swaps and column
replacements that take A to D.)
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Proof (using linear algebra)

Now suppose det A 6= 0. Observe that we can perform column

swaps and column replacements to make A equivalent to a
diagonal matrix  
e 0
D= .
0 f
Note that
     
e 0 e
det D = ef = area of rectangle with vertices 0, , , .
0 f f

We know the column swaps and column replacements taking A to

D keep the absolute value of the determinant constant (swaps
change the sign, which doesn’t affect absolute value). We should
show that these operations also keep the area of the image of the
unit square constant.
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Proof (using linear algebra)

How do column swaps affect the area of the image of unit square?
That is, how do the areas of the image of the unit square differ for
the two linear transformations with standard matrices
   
a b b a
and ?
c d d c

They don’t, because the two parallelograms are the same (even
though the transformations are different)!

(On the other hand, column swaps change det A by a sign. But
we’re only interested in the absolute value | det A|, so there’s no
issue.)
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

Proof (using linear algebra)

What about column replacements? They also preserve the area.

(See board.)
Invertibility and determinants Transpose and determinants Determinants measure volume distortion

More generally

The same argument can be generalized to arbitrary n × n matrices,

not just 2 × 2 (with appropriate higher-dimensional notions of
area/volume), yielding the following
Theorem
If A is a n × n matrix, the volume of the parallelepiped (a higher
dimensional generalization of parallelogram) determined by the
columns of A is | det A|.