University of Science and Technology of Hanoi MAT1.

002
Academic year 2025-2026 LINEAR ALGEBRA

Exercise Sheet 2: Operations with Matrices

1 Matrices and Gaussian Elimination

Operations on matrices
Recall:

1) Some special matrices: Identity matrices, zero matrices, symmetric matrices, . . .

2) Operations: Addition, multiplication with a scalar, transpose of a matrix, multiplica-

tion.

3) General properties: Associativity, commutativity, . . .

Exercise 1. Suppose that A, B, C, D, E are matrices with the following sizes: A : 4 × 5;

B : 4 × 5; C : 5 × 2; D : 4 × 2; E : 5 × 5. Determine (if it exists) the size of each of the
following matrices:

1. BA; 4. AB + B; 7. E T A;
2. AC + D; 5. 2E(A + B);
3. AE + B; 6. E(AC); 8. (AT + E)D.

Exercise 2. Let
     
3 0     1 5 2 6 1 3
4 −1 1 4 2
A = −1 2 , B = ,C = , D = −1 0 1 , E = −1 1 2 .
0 2 3 1 5
1 1 3 2 4 4 1 3

Compute the following (where possible):

1. 2B − C; 5. AC and CA;

2. 3D − 2E T ; 6. (C T B)AT and T r((C T B)AT );

3. 3DT − 2E and T r(3D − 2E T ); 7. T r(DDT );

4. AB and BA; 8. DT E T − (ED)T .

Exercise 3. Write down the 2 by 2 matrices A and B that have entries aij = i + j and
bij = (−1)i+j . Multiply them to find AB and BA. Is the product of A and B commutative?

Exercise 4. Which of the following matrices are guaranteed to equal (A + B)2 ?

 1. A2 + 2AB + B 2 3. (A + B)(B + A)

2. A(A + B) + B(A + B) 4. A2 + AB + BA + B 2
Exercise 5. Suppose A commutes with every 2 by 2 matrix, and in particular
     
a b 1 0 0 1
A= commutes with B1 = , B2 = .
c d 0 0 0 0
Show that a = d and b = c = 0. Consequently, prove that if AB = BA for all 2 × 2-matrices
B, then A is a multiple of the identity.
Exercise 6. In each part, find matrices A, X, B which express the given system of linear
equations as a single matrix equation AX = B. Solve these equations.
1.
x1 − 3x2 + 5x3 = 7
9x1 − x2 + x3 = −1
x1 + 5x2 + 4x3 = 0

2.
x1 − 3x3 + x4 =7
5x1 + x2 − 8x4 =3
2x1 − 5x2 + 9x3 − x4 =0
3x2 − x3 + 7x4 = 2

Exercise 7. Find the powers A2 , A3 , B 2 , B 3 , C 2 , C 3 . What are Ak , B k and C k for a given

k? 1 1 1 1
  
1 0 −
A = 21 21 , B = , and C = AB = 21 2 .
2 2
0 −1 2
− 12

Inverses of matrices
Recall:
1) Equivalent definitions: A ∈ Mn×n is invertible if one the following equivalent conditions
holds.
i) There exists B ∈ Mn×n such that AB = BA = I;
ii) The equation Ax = b has a unique solution for every b ∈ Mn×1 ;
ii) The equation Ax = 0 has only the trivial solution, i.e., x = 0.
2) Find the inverse of a matrix.
ˆ Using elementary row transformations to bring [A|I] into [I|A−1 ]. (Gauss–Jordan)
Exercise 8. Use the Gauss–Jordan
  method to invert the following matrices then solve the
−1
equations Ax = b for b =  2 .
7

2
 1. 3. 5.
     √ √ 
1 0 0 1 1 1 √2 3
√ 2 0
A1 = 1 1 1 , A3 = 1 2 2 , A5 = −4 2 2 0 ,
0 0 1 1 2 3 0 0 1

2. 4. 6.
−2
    1 1

2 −1 0 0 0 1 5 5 5
A2 = −1 2 −1 , A4 = 0 1 1 , A6 = 1 1 1 
.
5 5 10
1 −4 1
0 −1 2 1 1 1 5 5 10

Exercise 9. Find the inverse (in any legal way) of

1. 2. 3.
     
0 0 0 1 a b 0 0 k 0 0 0
0 0 2 0 c d 0 0 1 k 0 0
A1 = 
0
, A2 =  , A3 =  .
3 0 0 0 0 a b 0 1 k 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 c d 0 0 1 k
Exercise 10. For which numbers c is this matrix not invertible, and why not?
 
2 c c
A= c c c
8 7 c
Exercise 11. Give examples of matrices A and B such that
(a) A + B is not invertible although A and B are invertible.
(b) A + B is invertible although A and B are not invertible.
(c) All of A, B, and A + B are invertible.
(d) In the last case, use A−1 (A + B)B −1 = B −1 + A−1 to show that C = B −1 + A−1 is also
invertible and find a formula for C.
Exercise 12. Show that A2 = 0 is possible but AT A = 0 is not possible (unless A is the
zero matrix).
Exercise 13. If the inverse of A2 is B, show that the inverse of A is AB. Thus, A is
invertible whenever A2 is invertible.
Exercise 14. If A = AT and B = B T , which of the following matrices are certainly sym-
metric?
1. A2 − B 2 ;
2. (A + B)(A − B);
3. ABA;
4. ABAB.