NOTE 5: MATRICES IN R

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• Matrix is a two dimensional data structure.
2 5
21 1 0 18 1×4
12 8 2×2
• It is a vector with additional dimension attributes; number of rows and columns.
• Matrices contain elements of the same atomic types.

Logical: 𝑇𝑅𝑈𝐸 𝐹𝐴𝐿𝑆𝐸

Integer: 1 1
𝐹𝐴𝐿𝑆𝐸 𝑇𝑅𝑈𝐸 2×2 0
1 2×2
𝑀𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑦
Double: 1.25 0.5 Character:
9.87 5.9 2×2 𝑇𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑑𝑎𝑦 2×1

• Matrix containing only characters or only logical values are not of much use.
• Matrices containing numeric elements can be used in mathematical calculations.

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Creating a Matrix
• The basic syntax for creating a matrix in R is:
matrix(vector, nrow=r, ncol=c, byrow=TRUE)
• vector: the input vector which becomes the data elements of the matrix
• nrow: the number of rows to be created
Dimensions of
• ncol: the number of columns to be created the matrix

• byrow: a logical clue. If TRUE (or T) then the input vector elements are
arranged by row
• Providing values for both dimensions is not necessary. If one of the dimensions
is provided, the other is inferred from length of the data.

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• Ex:
>A <- matrix(1:9,nrow=3,ncol=3,byrow=T)
>A <- matrix(1:9,nrow=3,byrow=T)

We can define the column and row names

>rownames(A)=c("row1", "row2", "row3")

>colnames(A)=c("col1", "col2", "col3")
>A
col1 col2 col3
row1 1 2 3
row2 4 5 6
row3 7 8 9

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• To find the dimensions of matrix A;
>dim(A)
[1] 3 3

• To find the transpose of matrix A;

>t(A)
row1 row2 row3
col1 1 4 7
col2 2 5 8
col3 3 6 9

• To find the diagonal elements of matrix A;

>diag(A)
[1] 1 5 9

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Exercise 1
1. Generate a sequence starting from 1 to 30 with an increment of 2 and name
it “Seq1”.
2. Create a matrix ‘M1’ using the values of ‘Seq1’ with 3 rows by entering the
values column wise.
3. Define the rows as ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’.
4. Define the columns as ‘P’, ‘Q’ , ‘R’, ‘S’ and ‘T’.
5. Find the dimensions of “M1”.
6. Find the transpose of “M1”.

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Answer
1. >Seq1 <-seq(from=1, to=30, by=2)
2. >M1 <-matrix(Seq1,nrow=3,byrow=FALSE)
3. >rownames(M1) <-c( "A", "B", "C")
4. >colnames(M1) <-c( "P", "Q", "R", "S", "T")
>M1
P Q R S T
A 1 7 13 19 25
B 3 9 15 21 27
C 5 11 17 23 29
4. >dim(M1)
5. >t(M1)

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Square Matrix
• A square matrix is a 𝑛 × 𝑛 matrix with the same number of rows and columns.
Properties:
• The number of rows is equal to number of columns.
• The determinant of a matrix can only be calculated for a square matrix.
• Trace of a matrix is equal to the sum of diagonal elements of the square
matrix.
• Inverse of matrix is calculated only for a square matrix.

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Determinant of a Matrix
• The determinant helps us to find the inverse of a matrix.
• It tells us things about the matrix that are useful in systems of linear
equations, calculus and more.
• The symbol for determinant is two vertical lines either side.
• For a 2 × 2 matrix the determinant is:
𝑎 𝑏
𝐴= 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝐴 = 𝐴 = 𝑎𝑑 − 𝑏𝑐
𝑐 𝑑 2×2

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Inverse of a Matrix
• The inverse of 𝐴 is 𝐴−1 only when:
𝐴 × 𝐴−1 = 𝐴−1 × 𝐴 = 𝐼
• For a 2 × 2 matrix the inverse is:
−1 1
𝑎 𝑏 𝑎 𝑏 𝑑 −𝑏
𝐴= 𝐿𝑒𝑡 𝐵 = 𝐴−1 = =
𝑐 𝑑 2×2 𝑐 𝑑 𝑎𝑑 − 𝑏𝑐 −𝑐 𝑎

• To find inverse of a matrix,

I. The matrix must be a square matrix (a matrix with the same number of
rows and columns).
II. The determinant of the matrix must not be equal to zero.

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 3 6
• Ex: Consider the matrix 𝐵 =
9 12 2×2

o Matrix 𝐵 is a square matrix.

o To find the determinant of matrix 𝐵 ;
>det(B)
[1] -18
o Determinant is not equal to zero, therefore, the inverse of matrix 𝐵 exists.

o Tofind the inverse of matrix 𝐵;

>solve(B)
[,1] [,2]
[1,] -0.6666667 0.3333333
[2,] 0.5000000 -0.1666667

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Diagonal Matrix
• A diagonal matrix is a matrix in which the entries outside the main diagonal are all zero;
the term usually refers to square matrices.
• Ex: To create a 3 × 3 diagonal matrix with values 2, 3, 5 in its diagonal
>M1 <- diag(c(2,3,5))
>M1
[,1] [,2] [,3]
[1,] 2 0 0
[2,] 0 3 0
[3,] 0 0 5

• Ex: To create a 5 × 5 diagonal matrix with the number 3 in its diagonal

>M2 <- diag(3,nrow=5)
>M2
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 3 0 0 0 0
[2,] 0 3 0 0 0
[3,] 0 0 3 0 0
[4,] 0 0 0 3 0
[5,] 0 0 0 0 3
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Exercise 2
1. Create the matrix 𝐴, where its diagonal values are 1, 2, 3, and 4.
2. Set the row names of 𝐴 as “a”, “b”, “c” and “d” and column names as “p”, “q”, “r”
and “s”.
3. Find the dimensions of matrix 𝐴.
4. Find the determinant of matrix 𝐴.
5. Find matrix 𝐵, where 𝐵 is the transpose of matrix 𝐴.
6. Find the inverse of matrix 𝐴 and name it as matrix 𝐶.

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Accessing Elements in a Matrix
2 3 6
Consider the following matrix; 𝑚2 = 5 8 7
4 9 1
• To find the 2nd element of 𝑚2 >m2[2]

• To find the 1st row of 𝑚2 >m2[1,]

• To find the 3rd column of 𝑚2 >m2[,3]

• To find the element in the 3rd row 2nd column of 𝑚2 >m2[3,2]

• To find the 2nd and 3rd rows of 𝑚2 >m2[2:3,]

• To find the 1st and 3rd columns of 𝑚2 >m2[,c(1,3)]

• To find the elements of 𝑚2, except in column 1 and 3 >m2[,-c(1,3)]

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 Modifying Elements of a Matrix
• To replace the value in the 2nd row 3rd column of 𝑚2 >m2[2,3]<-11
with 11
• To change the values in the 3rd row of 𝑚2 to 4,7,15 >m2[3,]<-c(4,7,15)

• To change the values in first 2 rows, last 2 columns of >m2[1:2,2:3]<-c(4,3,2,1)

𝑚2 to 4,3,2,1
• To add another row to 𝑚2 as 5,6,7 >rbind(m2,c(5:7))

• To add another column to 𝑚2 as 6, 10, 21 >cbind(m2,c(6,10,21))

• To remove the last row of 𝑚2 >m2<-m2[1:2,]

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• You can create empty matrices and later add elements to it.
>M3<-matrix(nrow=3,ncol=2)
>M3
[,1] [,2]
[1,] NA NA
[2,] NA NA
[3,] NA NA [,1] [,2]
[1,] 5 14
1. Add the values in a sequence from 5 to 20 with space 3 [2,] 8 17
[3,] 11 20
>M3[1:3,1:2]<-seq(5,20,3)
[,1] [,2]
[1,] 1 NA
2. Fill the 1st column of the empty matrix with 1,2,3 [2,] 2 NA
>M3[,1]<-c(1:3) [3,] 3 NA

[,1] [,2]
3. Fill the 1st and 3rd row of the empty matrix with 2,3,5,7 [1,] 2 5
>M3[c(1,3),]<-c(2,3,5,7) [2,] NA NA
[3,] 3 7
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Arithmetic Operations in Matrices
• To add or subtract two matrices, dimensions of both matrices should be equal.
1 2 5 6 1 2 5 6 7
+ +
3 4 2×2 7 8 2×2 3 4 2×2 8 9 10 2×3

• For matrix multiplication, the number of columns in the first matrix must be
equal to the number of rows in the second matrix.
1 2 5 6
7 8 1 2
3 4 × × 7 8
9 10 2×2 3 4 2×2
5 6 3×2 9 10 3×2

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• Create a 3 × 5 matrix 𝑚3 by including the integer values from 11 to 25 row-wise.

>m3 <- matrix(c(11:25), nrow=3, byrow=T)

>m3
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 11 12 13 14 15
[2,] 16 17 18 19 20
[3,] 21 22 23 24 25

• Create a 3 × 5 matrix 𝑚4 by including the integer values from 21 to 35 column-wise.

>m4 <- matrix(c(21:35), nrow=3, byrow=F)

>m4
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 21 24 27 30 33
[2,] 22 25 28 31 34
[3,] 23 26 29 32 35

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• Addition >m3+m4 [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 32 36 40 44 48
add 𝑚3 to 𝑚4 [2,] 38 42 46 50 54
[3,] 44 48 52 56 60

• Subtraction >m3-m4 [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]

[1,] -10 -12 -14 -16 -18
subtract 𝑚4 from 𝑚3 [2,] -6 -8 -10 -12 -14
[3,] -2 -4 -6 -8 -10

• Multiplication >m3%*%t(m4) [,1] [,2] [,3]

[1,] 1785 1850 1915
multiply 𝑚3 with the transpose [2,] 2460 2550 2640
of 𝑚4 [3,] 3135 3250 3365

• Element-wise multiplication >m3*m4 [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]

[1,] 231 288 351 420 495
can be done only if the dimensions [2,] 352 425 504 589 680
of both the matrices are equal [3,] 483 572 667 768 875

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