Matrix

Matrix theory" redirects here. For the physics topic, see Matrix theory
(physics) . For other uses of "Matrix", see Matrix (disambiguation) .

An m × n matrix: the m rows are horizontal and the n columns are

vertical. Each element of a matrix is often denoted by a variable with
two subscripts . For example, a 2,1 represents the element at the second
row and first column of the matrix.
In mathematics , a matrix (pl.: matrices) is a rectangular array or table
of numbers , symbols , or expressions , with elements or entries
arranged in rows and columns, which is used to represent
a mathematical object or property of such an object.
For example,is a matrix with two rows and three columns. This is
often referred to as a "two-by-three matrix", a " matrix", or a matrix
of dimension .Matrices are commonly used in linear algebra , where
they represent linear maps . In geometry , matrices are widely used for
specifying and representing geometric transformations (for
example rotations ) and coordinate changes . In numerical analysis ,
many computational problems are solved by reducing them to a
matrix computation, and this often involves computing with matrices
of huge dimensions. Matrices are used in most areas of mathematics
and scientific fields, either directly, or through their use in geometry
and numerical [Link] matrices , matrices with the same
number of rows and columns, play a major role in matrix theory.
Square matrices of a given dimension form a noncommutative ring ,
which is one of the most common examples of a noncommutative
ring. The determinant of a square matrix is a number associated with
the matrix, which is fundamental for the study of a square matrix; for
example, a square matrix is invertible if and only if it has a nonzero
determinant and the eigenvalues of a square matrix are the roots of
a polynomial determinant.

 Matrix theory is the branch of mathematics that

focuses on the study of matrices. It was initially a
sub-branch of linear algebra, but soon grew to
include subjects related to graph
theory, algebra, combinatorics and statistics .

Definition
 A matrix is a rectangular array of numbers (or other
mathematical objects), called the "entries" of the matrix.
Matrices are subject to standard operations such
as addition and multiplication . Most commonly, a matrix over
a field is a rectangular array of elements of . A real matrix and
a complex matrix are matrices whose entries are
respectively real numbers or complex numbers . More general
types of entries are discussed below . For instance, this is a real
matrix:

 The numbers, symbols, or expressions in the matrix are called

its entries or its elements. The horizontal and vertical lines of
entries in a matrix are respectively called rows and columns. [3]

Size
  The size of a matrix is defined by the number of rows and
columns it contains. There is no limit to the number of rows and
columns that a matrix (in the usual sense) can have as long as
they are positive integers. A matrix with rows and columns is
called an matrix, or -by- matrix, where and are called
its dimensions. For example, the matrix above is a matrix.
[5]

 Matrices with a single row are called row matrices or row

vectors, and those with a single column are called column
matrices or column vectors. A matrix with the same number of
rows and columns is called a square matrix . A matrix with an
infinite number of rows or columns (or both) is called an infinite
matrix . In some contexts, such as computer algebra programs ,
it is useful to consider a matrix with no rows or no columns,
called an empty matrix .

Overview of a matrix size

Exampl
Name Size Description
e

Row 1×
A matrix with one row, sometimes used to represent a vector
matrix n

Column A matrix with one column, sometimes used to represent a

n×1
matrix vector

A matrix with the same number of rows and columns,

Square n×
sometimes used to represent a linear transformation from a
matrix n
vector space to itself, such as reflection, rotation, or shearing.

Notation
 The specifics of symbolic matrix notation vary widely, with some
prevailing trends. Matrices are commonly written in square
 brackets or parentheses , so that an matrix is represented asThis
may be abbreviated by writing only a single generic term,
possibly along with indices, as inor in the case that .
 Matrices are usually symbolized using upper-case letters (such
as in the examples above), while the corresponding lower-
case letters, with two subscript indices (e.g., , or ), represent the
entries. In addition to using upper-case letters to symbolize
matrices, many authors use a special typographical style ,
commonly boldface Roman (non-italic), to further distinguish
matrices from other mathematical objects. An alternative
notation involves the use of a double-underline with the variable
name, with or without boldface style, as in .
 The entry in the i-th row and j-th column of a matrix A is
sometimes referred to as the or entry of the matrix, and
commonly denoted by or . Alternative notations for that entry
are and . For example, the entry of the following
matrix is 5 (also denoted , , or ):
 Sometimes, the entries of a matrix can be defined by a formula
such as . For example, each of the entries of the following
matrix is determined by the formula .
 In this case, the matrix itself is sometimes defined by that
formula, within square brackets or double parentheses. For
example, the matrix above is defined as or . If matrix size is , the
above-mentioned formula is valid for any and any . This can be
specified separately or indicated using as a subscript. For
instance, the matrix above is , and can be defined as or .
 Some programming languages utilize doubly subscripted arrays
(or arrays of arrays) to represent an m-by-n matrix. Some
programming languages start the numbering of array indexes at
zero, in which case the entries of an m-by-n matrix are indexed
by and . This article follows the more common convention in
mathematical writing where enumeration starts from 1.
 The set of all m-by-n real matrices is often denoted or The set
of all m-by-n matrices over another field , or over a ring R, is
similarly denoted or If m = n, such as in the case of square
matrices , one does not repeat the dimension: or Often, , or , is
used in place of
Notation
The specifics of symbolic matrix notation vary widely, with some
prevailing trends. Matrices are commonly written in square
brackets or parentheses , so that an matrix is represented as
 Matrices are usually symbolized using upper-case letters (such
as in the examples above), while the corresponding lower-
case letters, with two subscript indices (e.g., , or ), represent the
entries. In addition to using upper-case letters to symbolize
matrices, many authors use a special typographical style ,
commonly boldface Roman (non-italic), to further distinguish
matrices from other mathematical objects. An alternative
notation involves the use of a double-underline with the
variable name, with or without boldface style, as in .
 The entry in the i-th row and j-th column of a matrix A is
sometimes referred to as the or entry of the matrix, and
commonly denoted by or . Alternative notations for that entry
are and . For example, the entry of the following
matrix is 5 (also denoted , , or ):
 Sometimes, the entries of a matrix can be defined by a formula
such as . For example, each of the entries of the following
matrix is determined by the formula .
 In this case, the matrix itself is sometimes defined by that
formula, within square brackets or double parentheses. For
example, the matrix above is defined as or . If matrix size is ,
the above-mentioned formula is valid for any and any . This can
be specified separately or indicated using as a subscript. For
instance, the matrix above is , and can be defined as or .
 Some programming languages utilize doubly subscripted arrays
(or arrays of arrays) to represent an m-by-n matrix. Some
programming languages start the numbering of array indexes at
zero, in which case the entries of an m-by-n matrix are indexed
 by and . This article follows the more common convention in
mathematical writing where enumeration starts from 1.
 The set of all m-by-n real matrices is often denoted or The set
of all m-by-n matrices over another field , or over a ring R, is
similarly denoted or If m = n, such as in the case of square
matrices , one does not repeat the dimension: or Often, , or , is
used in place of

Basic operations
 Several basic operations can be applied to matrices. Some, such
as transposition and submatrix do not depend on the nature of
the entries. Others, such as matrix addition, scalar
multiplication, matrix multiplication, and row operations involve
operations on matrix entries and therefore require that matrix
entries are numbers or belong to a field or a ring .
Addition, scalar multiplication, subtraction and transposition

 Addition
 The sum A + B of two m×n matrices A and B is calculated
entrywise:
 Scalar multiplication
 The product cA of a number c (also called a scalar in this
context) and a matrix A is computed by multiplying every entry
of A by c:This operation is called scalar multiplication, but its
result is not named "scalar product" to avoid confusion, since
"scalar product" is often used as a synonym for "inner product ".
For example:
 Transposition
 The transpose of an m×n matrix A is the n×m matrix A T (also
denoted A tr or t A) formed by turning rows into columns and vice
versa:
 Familiar properties of numbers extend to these operations on
matrices: for example, addition is commutative , that is, the
matrix sum does not depend on the order of the
summands: A + B = B + A. The transpose is compatible with
addition and scalar multiplication, as expressed
by (cA) T = c(A T ) and (A + B) T = A T + B T . Finally, (A T ) T = A.

Matrix multiplication
Main article: Matrix multiplication

 Multiplication of two matrices is defined if and only if the

number of columns of the left matrix is the same as the number
of rows of the right matrix. If A is an m×n matrix and B is
an n×p matrix, then their matrix product AB is the m×p matrix
whose entries are given by dot product of the corresponding
row of A and the corresponding column of B:

Schematic depiction of the matrix product AB of two matrices A and B

 Matrix multiplication satisfies the

rules (AB)C = A(BC) (associativity ), and (A + B)C = AC + BC as
well as C(A + B) = CA + CB (left and right distributivity ),
whenever the size of the matrices is such that the various
products are defined. The product AB may be defined
 without BA being defined, namely
if A and B are m×n and n×k matrices, respectively,
and m ≠ k. Even if both products are defined, they generally
need not be equal, that is:

 In other words, matrix multiplication is not commutative , in

marked contrast to (rational, real, or complex) numbers, whose
product is independent of the order of the factors. An example
of two matrices not commuting with each other is:
 Besides the ordinary matrix multiplication just described, other
less frequently used operations on matrices that can be
considered forms of multiplication also exist, such as
the Hadamard product and the Kronecker product . They arise in
solving matrix equations such as the Sylvester equation .
Row operations
 Main article: Row operations
 There are three types of row operations:
 row addition, that is adding a row to another.
 row multiplication, that is multiplying all entries of a row by a
non-zero constant;
 row switching, that is interchanging two rows of a matrix;
 These operations are used in several ways, including
solving linear equations and finding matrix inverses .
Submatrix
 A submatrix of a matrix is a matrix obtained by deleting any collection of rows
and/or columns.
 The minors and cofactors of a matrix are found by computing
the determinant of certain submatrices.
 A principal submatrix is a square submatrix obtained by removing certain
rows and columns. The definition varies from author to author. According to
some authors, a principal submatrix is a submatrix in which the set of row
indices that remain is the same as the set of column indices that
remain. Other authors define a principal submatrix as one in which the
 first k rows and columns, for some number k, are the ones that remain; this
type of submatrix has also been called a leading principal submatrx.

Linear equations
 Main articles: Linear equation and System of linear equations
 Matrices can be used to compactly write and work with multiple
linear equations, that is, systems of linear equations. For
example, if A is an m×n matrix, x designates a column vector
(that is, n×1-matrix) of n variables x 1 , x 2 , ..., x n , and b is an m×1-
column vector, then the matrix equation
 Using matrices, this can be solved more compactly than would
be possible by writing out all the equations separately.
If n = m and the equations are independent , then this can be
done by writing
 where A −1 is the inverse matrix of A. If A has no inverse,
solutions—if any—can be found using its generalized inverse .

Linear transformations
 Main articles: Linear transformation and Transformation matrix
 Matrices and matrix multiplication reveal their essential
features when related to linear transformations, also known
as linear maps. A real m-by-n matrix A gives rise to a linear
transformation mapping each vector x in to the (matrix)
product Ax, which is a vector in Conversely, each linear
transformation arises from a unique m-by-n matrix A: explicitly,
the (i, j)-entry of A is the ith coordinate of f (e j ), where e j =
(0, ..., 0, 1, 0, ..., 0) is the unit vector with 1 in the jth position
and 0 elsewhere. The matrix A is said to represent the linear
map f, and A is called the transformation matrix of f.
THE VECTORS REPRESENTED BY A 2-BY-2 MATRIX CORRESPOND TO THE SIDES OF A UNIT
SQUARE TRANSFORMED INTO A PARALLELOGRAM .

 an be viewed as the transform of the unit square into

a parallelogram with vertices at (0, 0), (a, b), (a + c, b + d),
and (c, d). The parallelogram pictured at the right is obtained by

multiplying A with each of the column vectors [00],[10],[11] ,

 and [01] in turn. These vectors define the vertices of the unit
square.
 The following table shows several 2×2 real matrices with the

associated linear maps of R2.

 The blue original is mapped to the green grid and shapes. The
origin (0, 0) is marked with a black point.

Horizontal Reflection thr Squeeze Scaling Rotation

shear ough the mapping by a factor by π/6 =
with m = 1.25. vertical axis with r = 3/2 of 3/2 30°

 Under the 1-to-1 correspondence between matrices and linear

maps, matrix multiplication corresponds to composition of

the composition g ∘ f is represented by BA since.

maps: if a k-by-m matrix B represents another linear map , then

 The rank of a matrix A is the maximum number of linearly

independent row vectors of the matrix, which is the same as the
maximum number of linearly independent column
vectors. Equivalently it is the dimension of the image of the
linear map represented by A. The rank–nullity theorem states
that the dimension of the kernel of a matrix plus the rank equals
the number of columns of the matrix.

Square matrix
 Main article: Square matrix
  A square matrix is a matrix with the same number of rows and
columns. An n-by-n matrix is known as a square matrix of
order n. Any two square matrices of the same order can be
added and multiplied. The entries a ii form the main diagonal of a
square matrix. They lie on the imaginary line running from the
top left corner to the bottom right corner of the matrix.
Main types

 Diagonal and triangular matrix

 If all entries of A below the main diagonal are zero, A is called
an upper triangular matrix . Similarly, if all entries of A above
the main diagonal are zero, A is called a lower triangular
matrix. If all entries outside the main diagonal are zero, A is
called a diagonal matrix .

Identity matrix
 Main article: Identity matrix
 The identity matrix I n of size n is the n-by-n matrix in which all
the elements on the main diagonal are equal to 1 and all other
elements are equal to 0, for example,
  It is a square matrix of order n, and also a special kind
of diagonal matrix . It is called an identity matrix because
multiplication with it leaves a matrix unchanged:

for any m-by-n matrix A.

 A nonzero scalar multiple of an identity matrix is called

a scalar matrix. If the matrix entries come from a field, the
scalar matrices form a group, under matrix multiplication, that is
isomorphic to the multiplicative group of nonzero elements of
the field.

Symmetric or skew-symmetric matrix

 A square matrix A that is equal to its transpose, that is, A = AT, is

a symmetric matrix. If instead, A is equal to the negative of its
transpose, that is, A = −AT, then A is a skew-symmetric matrix. In
complex matrices, symmetry is often replaced by the concept of
Hermitian matrices, which satisfies A∗ = A, where the star or
asterisk denotes the conjugate transpose of the matrix, that is,
the transpose of the complex conjugate of A.
 By the spectral theorem, real symmetric matrices and complex Hermitian matrices
have an eigenbasis; that is, every vector is expressible as a linear combination of
eigenvectors. In both cases, all eigenvalues are real. This theorem can be generalized
to infinite-dimensional situations related to matrices with infinitely many rows and
columns, see below.

Invertible matrix and its inverse

 A square matrix A is called invertible or non-singular if there

exists a matrix B such that[ 37] [ 38] AB=BA=In, where In is

the n×n identity matrix with 1s on the main diagonal and 0s
elsewhere. If B exists, it is unique and is called the inverse
matrix of A, denoted A−1.
  There are many algorithms for testing whether a square matrix
is invertible, and, if it is, computing its inverse. One of the
oldest, which is still in common use is Gaussian elimination.[ 40]
Definite matrix
 A symmetric real matrix A is called positive-definite if the
associated quadratic form

 where I n is the n×n identity matrix with 1s on the main

diagonal and 0s elsewhere. If B exists, it is unique and is called
the inverse matrix of A, denoted A −1 .
 There are many algorithms for testing whether a square matrix
is invertible, and, if it is, computing its inverse. One of the
oldest, which is still in common use is Gaussian elimination .
Definite matrix
 A symmetric real matrix A is called positive-definite if the associated quadratic form

 has a positive value for every nonzero vector x in If f (x) only

yields negative values then A is negative-definite ; if f does
produce both negative and positive values then A is indefinite . If
the quadratic form f yields only non-negative values (positive or
zero), the symmetric matrix is called positive-semidefinite (or if
only non-positive values, then negative-semidefinite); hence the
matrix is indefinite precisely when it is neither positive-
semidefinite nor negative-semidefinite.
  A symmetric matrix is positive-definite if and only if all its
eigenvalues are positive, that is, the matrix is positive-
semidefinite and it is invertible. The table at the right shows two
possibilities for 2-by-2 matrices.
 Allowing as input two different vectors instead yields
the bilinear form associated to A
 Allowing as input two different vectors instead yields
the bilinear form associated to A

 In the case of complex matrices, the same terminology and

result apply, with symmetric matrix, quadratic form, bilinear
form, and transpose x T replaced respectively by Hermitian
matrix , Hermitian form , sesquilinear form , and conjugate
transpose x H .
Orthogonal matrix
Main article: Orthogonal matrix
An orthogonal matrix is a square matrix with real entries whose columns and rows
are orthogonal unit vectors (that is, orthonormal vectors). Equivalently, a matrix A is
orthogonal if its transpose is equal to its inverse:

which entails
where I n is the identity matrix of size n.
 An orthogonal matrix A is necessarily invertible (with
inverse A −1 = A T ), unitary (A −1 = A*), and normal (A*A = AA*).
The determinant of any orthogonal matrix is either +1 or −1.
A special orthogonal matrix is an orthogonal matrix
with determinant +1. As a linear transformation , every
orthogonal matrix with determinant +1 is a
pure rotation without reflection, i.e., the transformation
preserves the orientation of the transformed structure, while
every orthogonal matrix with determinant -1 reverses the
orientation, i.e., is a composition of a pure reflection and a
(possibly null) rotation. The identity matrices have
determinant 1 and are pure rotations by an angle zero.

 The complex analog of an orthogonal matrix is a unitary matrix .

Main operations
 Trace
 The trace , tr(A) of a square matrix A is the sum of its diagonal
entries. While matrix multiplication is not commutative as
mentioned above , the trace of the product of two matrices is
independent of the order of the factors:

 This is immediate from the definition of matrix multiplication:

 It follows that the trace of the product of more than two matrices is independent
of cyclic permutations of the matrices; however, this does not in general apply for
 arbitrary permutations (for example, tr(ABC) ≠ tr(BAC), in general). Also, the trace of
a matrix is equal to that of its transpose, that is,

Determinant

Main article: Determinant

 The determinant of a square matrix A (denoted det(A) or |A|) is

a number encoding certain properties of the matrix. A matrix is
invertible if and only if its determinant is nonzero. Its absolute
value equals the area (in ) or volume (in ) of the image of the
unit square (or cube), while its sign corresponds to the
orientation of the corresponding linear map: the determinant is
positive if and only if the orientation is preserved.
 The determinant of 2-by-2 matrices is given by

 The determinant of 3-by-3 matrices involves 6 terms (rule of Sarrus). The

more lengthy Leibniz formula generalizes these two formulae to all
dimensions.

A linear transformation on given by the indicated matrix. The determinant of this

matrix is −1, as the area of the green parallelogram at the right is 1, but the map
 reverses the orientation, since it turns the counterclockwise orientation of the
vectors to a clockwise one.

 The determinant of a product of square matrices equals

the product of their determinants:

or using alternate notation: [

 Adding a multiple of any row to another row, or a multiple

of any column to another column, does not change the
determinant. Interchanging two rows or two columns
affects the determinant by multiplying it by −1. Using
these operations, any matrix can be transformed to a
lower (or upper) triangular matrix, and for such matrices,
the determinant equals the product of the entries on the
main diagonal; this provides a method to calculate the
determinant of any matrix. Finally, the Laplace
expansion expresses the determinant in terms of minors ,
that is, determinants of smaller matrices. This expansion
can be used for a recursive definition of determinants
(taking as starting case the determinant of a 1-by-1 matrix,
which is its unique entry, or even the determinant of a 0-
by-0 matrix, which is 1), that can be seen to be equivalent
to the Leibniz formula. Determinants can be used to
solve linear systems using Cramer's rule , where the
division of the determinants of two related square
matrices equates to the value of each of the system's
variables.
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
 Main article: Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
 A number and a non-zero vector v satisfying

 are called an eigenvalue and an eigenvector of A, respectively.[52][53] The number λ is

an eigenvalue of an n×n-matrix A if and only if (A − λIn) is not invertible, which
is equivalent to The polynomial pA in an indeterminate X given by evaluation of the
determinant det(X In − A) is called the characteristic polynomial of A. It is a monic
polynomial of degree n. Therefore the polynomial equation pA(λ) = 0 has at
most n different solutions, that is, eigenvalues of the matrix They may be complex
even if the entries of A are real. According to the Cayley–Hamilton theorem, pA(A)
= 0, that is, the result of substituting the matrix itself into its characteristic
polynomial yields the zero matrix.

Computational aspects
 Matrix calculations can be often performed with different
techniques. Many problems can be solved by both direct
algorithms and iterative approaches. For example, the
eigenvectors of a square matrix can be obtained by finding
a sequence of vectors x n converging to an eigenvector
when n tends to infinity .
 To choose the most appropriate algorithm for each specific
problem, it is important to determine both the effectiveness and
precision of all the available algorithms. The domain studying
these matters is called numerical linear algebra . As with other
numerical situations, two main aspects are the complexity of
algorithms and their numerical stability .
 Determining the complexity of an algorithm means
finding upper bounds or estimates of how many elementary
operations such as additions and multiplications of scalars are
necessary to perform some algorithm, for
example, multiplication of matrices . Calculating the matrix
product of two n-by-n matrices using the definition given above
 needs n 3 multiplications, since for any of the n 2 entries of the
product, n multiplications are necessary. The Strassen
algorithm outperforms this "naive" algorithm; it needs
only n 2 . 8 0 7 multiplications. A refined approach also incorporates
specific features of the computing devices. [citation needed]

 In many practical situations, additional information about the

matrices involved is known. An important case is sparse
matrices , that is, matrices whose entries are mostly zero. There
are specifically adapted algorithms for, say, solving linear
systems Ax = b for sparse matrices A, such as the conjugate
gradient method .
 An algorithm is, roughly speaking, numerically stable if little
deviations in the input values do not lead to big deviations in
the result. For example, calculating the inverse of a matrix via
Laplace expansion (adj(A) denotes the adjugate matrix of A)

 may lead to significant rounding errors if the determinant of the

matrix is very small. The norm of a matrix can be used to
capture the conditioning of linear algebraic problems, such as
computing a matrix's inverse.
 Most computer programming languages support arrays but are
not designed with built-in commands for matrices. Instead,
available external libraries provide matrix operations on arrays
in nearly all currently used programming languages. Matrix
manipulation was among the earliest numerical applications of
computers. [61] The original Dartmouth BASIC had built-in
commands for matrix arithmetic on arrays from its second
edition implementation in 1964. As early as the 1970s, some
engineering desktop computers such as the HP 9830 had ROM
cartridges to add BASIC commands for matrices . Some computer
languages, such as APL were designed to manipulate matrices,
and various mathematical programs can be used to aid
 computing with matrices. As of 2023, most computers have
some form of built-in matrix operations at a low level
implementing the standard BLAS specification, upon which most
higher-level matrix and linear algebra libraries
(e.g., EISPACK , LINPACK , LAPACK ) rely. While most of these
libraries require a professional level of coding, LAPACK can be
accessed by higher-level (and user-friendly) bindings such
as NumPy /SciPy , R , GNU Octave , MATLAB .
Decomposition
 Main articles: Matrix decomposition , Matrix
diagonalization , Gaussian elimination , and Bareiss
algorithm
 There are several methods to render matrices into a more
easily accessible form. They are generally referred to
as matrix decomposition or matrix factorization techniques.
The interest of all these techniques is that they preserve
certain properties of the matrices in question, such as
determinant, rank, or inverse, so that these quantities can
be calculated after applying the transformation, or that
certain matrix operations are algorithmically easier to carry
out for some types of matrices.
 The LU decomposition factors matrices as a product of
lower (L) and an upper triangular matrices (U). Once this
decomposition is calculated, linear systems can be solved
more efficiently by a simple technique called forward and
back substitution . Likewise, inverses of triangular matrices
are algorithmically easier to calculate. The Gaussian
elimination is a similar algorithm; it transforms any matrix
to row echelon form . Both methods proceed by multiplying
the matrix by suitable elementary matrices , which
correspond to permuting rows or columns and adding
multiples of one row to another row. Singular value
decomposition expresses any matrix A as a product UDV ∗ ,
where U and V are unitary matrices and D is a diagonal
matrix.
  The eigendecomposition or diagonalization expresses A as a
product VDV −1 , where D is a diagonal matrix and V is a suitable
invertible matrix. If A can be written in this form, it is
called diagonalizable . More generally, and applicable to all
matrices, the Jordan decomposition transforms a matrix
into Jordan normal form , that is to say matrices whose only
nonzero entries are the eigenvalues λ 1 to λ n of A, placed on the
main diagonal and possibly entries equal to one directly above
the main diagonal, as shown at the right. Given the
eigendecomposition, the nth power of A (that is, n-fold iterated
matrix multiplication) can be calculated via

 and the power of a diagonal matrix can be calculated by taking

the corresponding powers of the diagonal entries, which is much
easier than doing the exponentiation for A instead. This can be
used to compute the matrix exponential e A , a need frequently
arising in solving linear differential equations , matrix
logarithms and square roots of matrices . To avoid numerically ill-
conditioned situations, further algorithms such as the Schur
decomposition can be employed.

An example of a matrix in Jordan normal form. The grey blocks are

called Jordan blocks.
 bstract algebraic aspects and generalizations
 Matrices can be generalized in different ways. Abstract algebra
uses matrices with entries in more general fields or even rings,
while linear algebra codifies properties of matrices in the notion
of linear maps. It is possible to consider matrices with infinitely
many columns and rows. Another extension is tensors, which can
be seen as higher-dimensional arrays of numbers, as opposed to
vectors, which can often be realized as sequences of numbers,
while matrices are rectangular or two-dimensional arrays of
numbers. Matrices, subject to certain requirements tend to
form groups known as matrix groups. Similarly under certain
conditions matrices form rings known as matrix rings. Though
the product of matrices is not in general commutative certain
matrices form fields known as matrix fields. In general, matrices
and their multiplication also form a category, the category of
matrices.

Abstract algebraic aspects and generalizations

 Matrices can be generalized in different ways. Abstract algebra uses matrices
with entries in more general fields or even rings, while linear algebra codifies
properties of matrices in the notion of linear maps. It is possible to consider
matrices with infinitely many columns and rows. Another extension is tensors,
which can be seen as higher-dimensional arrays of numbers, as opposed to
vectors, which can often be realized as sequences of numbers, while matrices
are rectangular or two-dimensional arrays of numbers.[70] Matrices, subject to
certain requirements tend to form groups known as matrix groups. Similarly
under certain conditions matrices form rings known as matrix rings. Though
the product of matrices is not in general commutative certain matrices
form fields known as matrix fields. In general, matrices and
their multiplication also form a category, the category of matrices.
Matrices with more general entries

This article focuses on matrices whose entries are real or complex

numbers. However, matrices can be considered with much more
general types of entries than real or complex numbers. As a first step
of generalization, any field , that is,
a set where addition , subtraction , multiplication ,
and division operations are defined and well-behaved, may be used
instead of or for example rational numbers or finite fields . For
example, coding theory makes use of matrices over finite fields.
Wherever eigenvalues are considered, as these are roots of a
polynomial they may exist only in a larger field than that of the
entries of the matrix; for instance, they may be complex in the case of
a matrix with real entries. The possibility to reinterpret the entries of
a matrix as elements of a larger field (for example, to view a real
matrix as a complex matrix whose entries happen to be all real) then
allows considering each square matrix to possess a full set of
eigenvalues. Alternatively one can consider only matrices with entries
in an algebraically closed field , such as from the outset.
More generally, matrices with entries in a ring R are widely used in
mathematics. Rings are a more general notion than fields in that a
division operation need not exist. The very same addition and
multiplication operations of matrices extend to this setting, too. The
set M(n, R) (also denoted M n (R) of all square n-by-n matrices over R is
a ring called matrix ring , isomorphic to the endomorphism ring of the
left R-module R n . If the ring R is commutative , that is, its
multiplication is commutative, then the ring M(n, R) is also
an associative algebra over R. The determinant of square matrices
over a commutative ring R can still be defined using the Leibniz
formula ; such a matrix is invertible if and only if its determinant
is invertible in R, generalizing the situation over a field F, where every
nonzero element is invertible. Matrices over superrings are
called supermatrices .
Matrices do not always have all their entries in the same ring – or
even in any ring at all. One special but common case is block matrices ,
which may be considered as matrices whose entries themselves are
matrices. The entries need not be square matrices, and thus need not
be members of any ring ; but their sizes must fulfill certain
compatibility conditions.

Relationship to linear maps

Linear maps are equivalent to m-by-n matrices, as described above .
More generally, any linear map f : V → W between finite-
dimensional vector spaces can be described by a matrix A = (a ij ), after
choosing bases v 1 , ..., v n of V, and w 1 , ..., w m of W (so n is the
dimension of V and m is the dimension of W), which is such that
In other words, column j of A expresses the image of v j in terms of the
basis vectors w i of W; thus this relation uniquely determines the
entries of the matrix A. The matrix depends on the choice of the
bases: different choices of bases give rise to different, but equivalent
matrices . Many of the above concrete notions can be reinterpreted in
this light, for example, the transpose matrix A T describes
the transpose of the linear map given by A, concerning the dual bases .
These properties can be restated more naturally: the category of
matrices with entries in a field with multiplication as composition
is equivalent to the category of finite-dimensional vector spaces and
linear maps over this field.
More generally, the set of m×n matrices can be used to represent
the R-linear maps between the free modules R m and R n for an arbitrary
ring R with unity. When n = m composition of these maps is possible,
and this gives rise to the matrix ring of n×n matrices representing
the endomorphism ring of R n .

Matrix groups
Main article: Matrix group
A group is a mathematical structure consisting of a set of objects
together with a binary operation, that is, an operation combining any
two objects to a third, subject to certain requirements. A group in
which the objects are matrices and the group operation is matrix
multiplication is called a matrix group. Since a group of every element
must be invertible, the most general matrix groups are the groups of
all invertible matrices of a given size, called the general linear groups.
Any property of matrices that is preserved under matrix products and
inverses can be used to define further matrix groups. For example,
matrices with a given size and with a determinant of 1 form
a subgroup of (that is, a smaller group contained in) their general
linear group, called a special linear group. Orthogonal matrices,
determined by the conditionMTM=I,form the orthogonal group. Every
orthogonal matrix has determinant 1 or −1. Orthogonal matrices with
determinant 1 form a subgroup called special orthogonal group.
Every finite group is isomorphic to a matrix group, as one can see by
considering the regular representation of the symmetric
group. General groups can be studied using matrix groups, which are
comparatively well understood, using representation theory.
Infinite matrices
It is also possible to consider matrices with infinitely many rows
and/or columns even though, being infinite objects, one cannot write
down such matrices explicitly. All that matters is that for every
element in the set indexing rows, and every element in the set
indexing columns, there is a well-defined entry (these index sets need
not even be subsets of the natural numbers). The basic operations of
addition, subtraction, scalar multiplication, and transposition can still
be defined without problem; however, matrix multiplication may
involve infinite summations to define the resulting entries, and these
are not defined in general.
If R is any ring with unity, then the ring of endomorphisms of as a
right R module is isomorphic to the ring of column finite
matrices whose entries are indexed by , and whose columns each
contain only finitely many nonzero entries. The endomorphisms
of M considered as a left R module result in an analogous object,
the row finite matrices whose rows each only have finitely many
nonzero entries.
If infinite matrices are used to describe linear maps, then only those
matrices can be used all of whose columns have but a finite number
of nonzero entries, for the following reason. For a matrix A to
describe a linear map f : V → W, bases for both spaces must have
been chosen; recall that by definition this means that every vector in
the space can be written uniquely as a (finite) linear combination of
basis vectors, so that written as a (column) vector ve of coefficients ,
only finitely many entries v I are nonzero. Now the columns
of A describe the images by f of individual basis vectors of V in the
basis of W, which is only meaningful if these columns have only
finitely many nonzero entries. There is no restriction on the rows
of A however: in the product A · v there are only finitely many
nonzero coefficients of v involved, so every one of its entries, even if
it is given as an infinite sum of products, involves only finitely many
nonzero terms and is therefore well defined. Moreover, this amounts
to forming a linear combination of the columns of A that effectively
involves only finitely many of them, whence the result has only
finitely many nonzero entries because each of those columns does.
Products of two matrices of the given type are well defined (provided
that the column-index and row-index sets match), are of the same
type, and correspond to the composition of linear maps.
If R is a normed ring, then the condition of row or column finiteness
can be relaxed. With the norm in place, absolutely convergent
series can be used instead of finite sums. For example, the matrices
whose column sums are convergent sequences form a ring.
Analogously, the matrices whose row sums are convergent series also
form a ring.
Infinite matrices can also be used to describe operators on Hilbert
spaces , where convergence and continuity questions arise, which
again results in certain constraints that must be imposed. However,
the explicit point of view of matrices tends to obfuscate the matter,
and the abstract and more powerful tools of functional analysis can
be used instead.
Empty matrix
An empty matrix is a matrix in which the number of rows or columns
(or both) is zero. Empty matrices help to deal with maps involving
the zero vector space. For example, if A is a 3-by-0 matrix and B is a 0-
by-3 matrix, then AB is the 3-by-3 zero matrix corresponding to the
null map from a 3-dimensional space V to itself, while BA is a 0-by-0
matrix. There is no common notation for empty matrices, but
most computer algebra systems allow creating and computing with
them. The determinant of the 0-by-0 matrix is 1 as follows regarding
the empty product occurring in the Leibniz formula for the
determinant as 1. This value is also consistent with the fact that the
identity map from any finite-dimensional space to itself has
determinant 1, a fact that is often used as a part of the
characterization of determinants.
Applications
 There are numerous applications of matrices, both in
mathematics and other sciences. Some of them merely take
advantage of the compact representation of a set of numbers in
a matrix. For example, in game theory and economics, the payoff
matrix encodes the payoff for two players, depending on which
out of a given (finite) set of strategies the players choose. Text
mining and automated thesaurus compilation makes use
of document-term matrices such as tf-idf to track frequencies of
certain words in several documents.
 Complex numbers can be represented by particular real 2-by-2
matrices via

 a+ib↔[a−bba],
 under which addition and multiplication of complex numbers
and matrices correspond to each other. For example, 2-by-2
 rotation matrices represent the multiplication with some
complex number of absolute value 1, as above. A similar
interpretation is possible for quaternions and Clifford algebras in
general.
 Early encryption techniques such as the Hill cipher also used
matrices. However, due to the linear nature of matrices, these
codes are comparatively easy to break. Computer graphics uses
matrices to represent objects; to calculate transformations of
objects using affine rotation matrices to accomplish tasks such
as projecting a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional
screen, corresponding to a theoretical camera observation; and
to apply image convolutions such as sharpening, blurring, edge
detection, and more. Matrices over a polynomial ring are
important in the study of control theory.
 Chemistry makes use of matrices in various ways, particularly
since the use of quantum theory to discuss molecular
bonding and spectroscopy. Examples are the overlap matrix and
the Fock matrix used in solving the Roothaan equations to
obtain the molecular orbitals of the Hartree–Fock method.

Graph theory
 The adjacency matrix of a finite graph is a basic notion of graph
theory. It records which vertices of the graph are connected by
an edge. Matrices containing just two different values (1 and 0
meaning for example "yes" and "no", respectively) are
called logical matrices. The distance (or cost) matrix contains
information about the distances of the edges. These concepts
can be applied to websites connected by hyperlinks or cities
connected by roads etc., in which case (unless the connection
network is extremely dense) the matrices tend to be sparse, that
is, contain few nonzero entries. Therefore, specifically tailored
matrix algorithms can be used in network theory.
An undirected graph with adjacency matrix:
Analysis and geometry
 The Hessian matrix of a differentiable function consists of
the second derivatives of ƒ concerning the several coordinate

directions, that is,

 It encodes information about the local growth behavior of the function: given
a critical point x = (x1, ..., xn), that is, a point where the first partial
derivatives of ƒ vanish, the function has a local minimum if the Hessian matrix
is positive definite. Quadratic programming can be used to find global minima or
maxima of quadratic functions closely related to the ones attached to matrices
(see above).
 Another matrix frequently used in geometrical situations is the Jacobi matrix of a
differentiable map If f1, ..., fm denote the components of f, then the Jacobi matrix is
defined as
At the saddle point (x = 0, y = 0) (red) of the function f (x,−y)

= x2 − y2the Hessian matrix is indefinite.

If n > m, and if the rank of the Jacobi matrix attains its maximal value m, f is locally

invertible at that point, by the implicit function theorem .

Partial differential equations can be classified by considering the matrix of


coefficients of the highest-order differential operators of the equation. For elliptic

partial differential equations this matrix is positive definite, which has a decisive

influence on the set of possible solutions of the equation in question.

The finite element method is an important numerical method to solve partial


differential equations, widely applied in simulating complex physical systems. It

attempts to approximate the solution to some equation by piecewise linear

functions, where the pieces are chosen concerning a sufficiently fine grid, which in

turn can be recast as a matrix equation.

Probability theory and statistics

 Stochastic matrices are square matrices whose rows

are probability vectors, that is, whose entries are non-negative
and sum up to one. Stochastic matrices are used to
define Markov chains with finitely many states. A row of the
stochastic matrix gives the probability distribution for the next
position of some particle currently in the state that corresponds
to the row. Properties of the Markov chain-like absorbing states,
that is, states that any particle attains eventually, can be read
off the eigenvectors of the transition matrices.
 Statistics also makes use of matrices in many different forms.
Descriptive statistics is concerned with describing data sets,
which can often be represented as data matrices, which may
then be subjected to dimensionality reduction techniques.
The covariance matrix encodes the mutual variance of
 several random variables. Another technique using matrices
are linear least squares, a method that approximates a finite set
of pairs (x1, y1), (x2, y2), ..., (xN, yN), by a linear

functionyi≈axi+b,i=1,…,N
 which can be formulated in terms of matrices, related to
the singular value decomposition of matrices.
 Random matrices are matrices whose entries are random
numbers, subject to suitable probability distributions, such
as matrix normal distribution. Beyond probability theory, they
are applied in domains ranging from number theory to physics.

Two different Markov chains. The chart depicts the number of particles (of a total of 1000) in state

"2". Both limiting values can be determined from the transition matrices, which are given
by (red) and (black).
Symmetries and transformations in
physics
 Further information: Symmetry in physics
 Linear transformations and the associated symmetries play a key
role in modern physics. For example, elementary
particles in quantum field theory are classified as
representations of the Lorentz group of special relativity and,
more specifically, by their behavior under the spin group.
Concrete representations involving the Pauli matrices and more
general gamma matrices are an integral part of the physical
description of fermions, which behave as spinors.[108] For the
three lightest quarks, there is a group-theoretical representation
involving the special unitary group SU(3); for their calculations,
physicists use a convenient matrix representation known as
the Gell-Mann matrices, which are also used for the SU(3) gauge
group that forms the basis of the modern description of strong
nuclear interactions, quantum chromodynamics. The Cabibbo–
Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix, in turn, expresses the fact that the
basic quark states that are important for weak interactions are
not the same as, but linearly related to the basic quark states
that define particles with specific and distinct masses.
Linear combinations of quantum states
 The first model of quantum mechanics (Heisenberg , 1925)
represented the theory's operators by infinite-dimensional
matrices acting on quantum states. This is also referred to
as matrix mechanics . One particular example is the density
matrix that characterizes the "mixed" state of a quantum system
as a linear combination of elementary, "pure" eigenstates .
 Another matrix serves as a key tool for describing the scattering
experiments that form the cornerstone of experimental particle
physics: Collision reactions such as occur in particle
accelerators , where non-interacting particles head towards each
 other and collide in a small interaction zone, with a new set of
non-interacting particles as the result, can be described as the
scalar product of outgoing particle states and a linear
combination of ingoing particle states. The linear combination is
given by a matrix known as the S-matrix , which encodes all
information about the possible interactions between particles.
Normal modes
A general application of matrices in physics is the description of
linearly coupled harmonic systems. The equations of motion of such
systems can be described in matrix form, with a mass matrix
multiplying a generalized velocity to give the kinetic term, and
a force matrix multiplying a displacement vector to characterize the
interactions. The best way to obtain solutions is to determine the
system's eigenvectors , its normal modes , by diagonalizing the matrix
equation. Techniques like this are crucial when it comes to the
internal dynamics of molecules : the internal vibrations of systems
consisting of mutually bound component atoms. They are also needed
for describing mechanical vibrations, and oscillations in electrical
circuits.
Geometrical optics
Geometrical optics provides further matrix applications. In this
approximative theory, the wave nature of light is neglected. The result
is a model in which light rays are indeed geometrical rays . If the
deflection of light rays by optical elements is small, the action of
a lens or reflective element on a given light ray can be expressed as
multiplication of a two-component vector with a two-by-two matrix
called ray transfer matrix analysis : the vector's components are the
light ray's slope and its distance from the optical axis, while the
matrix encodes the properties of the optical element. There are two
kinds of matrices, viz. a refraction matrix describing the refraction at
a lens surface, and a translation matrix, describing the translation of
the plane of reference to the next refracting surface, where another
refraction matrix applies. The optical system, consisting of a
combination of lenses and/or reflective elements, is simply described
by the matrix resulting from the product of the components' matrices.
Electronics

 Traditional mesh analysis and nodal analysis in electronics lead to a system of linear
equations that can be described with a matrix.
 The behavior of many electronic components can be described using matrices.
Let A be a 2-dimensional vector with the component's input voltage v1 and input
current I1 as its elements, and let B be a 2-dimensional vector with the component's
output voltage v2 and output current I2 as its elements. Then the behavior of the
electronic component can be described by B = H · A, where H is a 2 x 2 matrix
containing one impedance element (h12), one admittance element (h21), and
two dimensionless elements (h11 and h22). Calculating a circuit now reduces to
multiplying matrices.

History
 Matrices have a long history of application in solving linear
equations but they were known as arrays until the 1800s.
The Chinese text The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical
Art written in the 10th–2nd century BCE is the first example of
the use of array methods to solve simultaneous
equations , including the concept of determinants . In 1545
Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano introduced the
method to Europe when he published Ars Magna. The Japanese
mathematician Seki used the same array methods to solve
simultaneous equations in 1683. The Dutch mathematician Jan
de Witt represented transformations using arrays in his 1659
book Elements of Curves (1659). Between 1700 and
1710 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz publicized the use of arrays for
recording information or solutions and experimented with over
50 different systems of arrays. Cramer presented his rule in
1750.
 he term "matrix" (Latin for "womb", "dam" (non-human female
animal kept for breeding), "source", "origin", "list", and
"register", are derived from mater —mother) was coined
by James Joseph Sylvester in 1850, who understood a matrix as
an object giving rise to several determinants today
 called minors , that is to say, determinants of smaller matrices
that derive from the original one by removing columns and rows.
In an 1851 paper, Sylvester explains:
 I have in previous papers defined a "Matrix" as a rectangular
array of terms, out of which different systems of determinants
may be engendered from the womb of a common parent.
 Arthur Cayley published a treatise on geometric transformations
using matrices that were not rotated versions of the coefficients
being investigated as had previously been done. Instead, he
defined operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division as transformations of those matrices and showed
the associative and distributive properties held. Cayley
investigated and demonstrated the non-commutative property
of matrix multiplication as well as the commutative property of
matrix addition. Early matrix theory had limited the use of
arrays almost exclusively to determinants and Arthur Cayley's
abstract matrix operations were revolutionary. He was
instrumental in proposing a matrix concept independent of
equation systems. In 1858 Cayley published his A memoir on the
theory of matrices in which he proposed and demonstrated
the Cayley–Hamilton theorem .
 The English mathematician Cuthbert Edmund Cullis was the first
to use modern bracket notation for matrices in 1913 and he
simultaneously demonstrated the first significant use of the
notation A = [a i,j ] to represent a matrix where a i,j refers to
the ith row and the jth column.
 The modern study of determinants sprang from several
sources. Number-theoretical problems led Gauss to relate
coefficients of quadratic forms, that is, expressions such
as x2 + xy − 2y2, and linear maps in three dimensions to
matrices. Eisenstein further developed these notions, including
the remark that, in modern parlance, matrix products are non-
commutative. Cauchy was the first to prove general statements
about determinants, using as the definition of the determinant
 of a matrix A = [ai, j] the following: replace the powers ak
j by ajk in the polynomial.

 where denotes the product of the indicated terms. He also

showed, in 1829, that the eigenvalues of symmetric matrices are
real. Jacobi studied "functional determinants"—later
called Jacobi determinants by Sylvester—which can be used to
describe geometric transformations at a local (or infinitesimal )
level, see above . Kronecker 's Vorlesungen über die Theorie der
Determinanten and Weierstrass' Zur Determinantentheorie, both
published in 1903, first treated determinants axiomatically , as
opposed to previous more concrete approaches such as the
mentioned formula of Cauchy. At that point, determinants were
firmly established.
 Many theorems were first established for small matrices only, for
example, the Cayley–Hamilton theorem was proved for 2×2
matrices by Cayley in the aforementioned memoir, and
by Hamilton for 4×4 matrices. Frobenius, working on bilinear forms,
generalized the theorem to all dimensions (1898). Also at the end of
the 19th century, the Gauss–Jordan elimination (generalizing a
special case now known as Gauss elimination) was established
by Wilhelm Jordan. In the early 20th century, matrices attained a
central role in linear algebra, partially due to their use in the
classification of the hypercomplex number systems of the previous
century.