Linear Algebra I Homework 16

1. Textbook Sec. 4.3 Exercises 24 (hint: cofactor expansion along the last column),
26(h), 27; Sec. 4.4 Exercises 3(fh).

2. Use determinants to prove that if A ∈ Mn×m (F ) and B ∈ Mm×n (F ) are such that
AB = In , then n ≤ m. Hint: if n > m, make A and B square by adding zeros, and
compute the product   
B
 A
0  .
0
3. Let A ∈ Mn×n (F ), B ∈ Mm×m (F ), and C ∈ Mn×m (F ). Show that
 
A C
det = (det A)(det B)
0 B

by induction on n and cofactor expansion along the first column.

4. Let F be a field, a1 , . . . , an ∈ F be n distinct elements, and let T : Pn−1 (F ) → F n be

the linear transformation given by T (f ) = (f (a1 ), . . . , f (an )) for all f ∈ Pn−1 (F ).

(a) Show that the matrix representation of T relative to the standard bases has a
nonzero determinant.
(b) Use (a) to show that for any b1 , . . . , bn ∈ F , there exists a unique polynomial
(called the interpolation polynomial) f ∈ Pn−1 (F ) such that f (ai ) = bi for all
i = 1, . . . , n.

5. Show that if m1 , . . . , mn are integers, then the number

Y mj − mi
1≤i<j≤n
j−i

is an integer. (Hint: consider the determinant of the matrix

1 m11
m21
· · · n−1m1





1 m2 m2 m2 


1 2
· · · n−1 
..  ,

 .. .. .. ...
. .
.
.

mn mn mn
1 1 2
· · · n−1

where m


k
= m(m − 1) · · · (m − k + 1)/k! is the binomial coefficient.)

1
6. In this exercise, we will use Cramer’s Rule to derive the formula for A−1 . For
simplicity, let’s first illustrate this method for a 3 × 3 matrix. So suppose we are
given an invertible 3 × 3 matrix A, and we want to find its inverse, which is a 3 × 3
matrix  
x1 x2 x3
 y1 y2 y3 
z1 z2 z3
such that    
x 1 x 2 x3 1 0 0
A ·  y1 y2 y3  = 0 1 0 .
z1 z2 z3 0 0 1

(a) Show that the above matrix equation is equivalent to the following three linear
systems
           
x1 1 x2 0 x3 0
A y1 = 0 , A y2 = 1 , A y3 = 0 .
          
z1 0 z2 0 z3 1

(b) Solve the three linear systems in (a) by Cramer’s Rule to show that
           
x1 c11 x2 c21 x3 c
 y1  = 1   1   1  31 
c12 ,  y2  = c22 ,  y3  = c32 ,
det(A) det(A) det(A)
z1 c13 z2 c23 z3 c33

where cij is the (i, j)-cofactor of A.

(c) Generalize the above to an invertible n × n matrix A and show that
1
A−1 = adj(A),
det(A)

where adj(A) is the classical adjoint of A.