SCHOOL Of MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES M O N A S H

U N I V E R S I T Y

MTH1030
Techniques for Modelling
Assignment 2

Due date : Lab. class in the week starting 2 May

The are a total of 40 marks available for this assignment. The questions are
not equally weighted, some questions carry more marks than others. Look
carefully at each question.
You will only get full marks for answers that are fully justified and neatly
presented. Explain exactly what you are doing, using full (English) sentences.

1. You are a famous rock star and so great is your fame you decide that you need a unique
name, one that befits your status as a rock legend. After looking at the choices made
by other lesser stars you reject the idea of silly names like Snoop Dogg, Pink and The
Edge. You are also a bit of a renegade and you like to do things over the triangle, under
the pentagram and near the cube (outside the square is so passé). So you choose the
following image as your new name (leaving the problems of pronunciation and litigation
to your brash agent and your overpaid lawyers).

You like your new name very much. So much so that you wonder what it would look like
when seen in a mirror. You write your new name on a piece of paper and then present
the paper to a mirror. This is what you see
School of Mathematical Sciences Monash University

Your sharp analytical mind (not yet totally dulled by the excesses of the rock world)
notices that the image has been swapped left to right but, interestingly, not top to
bottom.
Why is that so? You should be able to explain this observation entirely in terms of
rotations in 3-dimensional space.
(10/10 marks)

2. Suppose A is a symmetric N × N matrix with eigenvectors vi , i = 1, 2, 3 · · · N with

corresponding eigenvalues λi , i = 1, 2, 3 · · · N .
Pick any two distinct eigenvalues (assuming such a pair exists). Let’s call them λ1 and
λ2 and their corresponding eigenvectors v1 and v2 .
(a) Write down the matrix equations that show that v1 and v2 are eigenvectors of A.
(b) Compute the transpose of the equation satisfied by v2 .
(c) Multiply, from the right, the result of part (b) by v1 .
(d) Use the assumptions that A is symmetric and λ1 6= λ2 to deduce a value for v2T v1 .
(e) What important property can you deduce from your result in part (d)?
(3+3+3+3+3/15 marks)

3. Use integration by parts to express

Z
I(n) = sinn (x) dx

in terms of I(n − 2). (10/15 marks)

Hence show that Z π/2

1 4
4 dx =
π/4 sin (x) 3
(5/15 marks)

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