Activity 1

  1. Consider the matrix $$ M_1 = \begin{bmatrix} 3 & 0 & 2 & 5\\ -1 & 3 & -2 & 3\\ 4 & 9 & 0 & -5\\ \end{bmatrix} $$
    1. What is the dimension of this matrix?
    2. What are the row vectors of this matrix?
    3. What are the column vectors of his matrix?
  2. Suppose we want to define the meaning of "matrix-vector product" $M\cdot \boldsymbol{x}$, for matrix $M$ and column vector $\boldsymbol{x}$, so that it is equivalent to
    • the linear combination of the column vectors of $M$ where the coefficients are the components of $\boldsymbol{x}$, or
    • the linear transformation defined by row vectors of $M$, applied to the vector $\boldsymbol{x}$.
    ... hopefully you realize that both of these are in fact equivalent.
    1. Looking at $M_1$ in the above example, what dimension must the column vector $\boldsymbol{x}$ have in order to have the linear combination of the columns (or dot products defining the linear transformation) make sense?
    2. In general, if $M$ is an $m\times n$ matrix, in order for the product $M \cdot \boldsymbol{x}$ make sense, what dimension must the column vector $\boldsymbol{x}$ have?
    3. Assuming $M$ and $\boldsymbol{x}$ have compatible dimensions, how should result of the matrix vector product $M \cdot \boldsymbol{x}$ be defined?

Activity 2

  1. Compute the following matrix products: $$ \begin{array}{ccccc} \begin{bmatrix} 4&0&-2\\ 1&-3&4 \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} 2\\ -1\\ 1/2 \end{bmatrix} = \ \ \ \ \ &,& \begin{bmatrix} 2&3\\ -1&0\\ 5&2 \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} 2\\ 1/2 \end{bmatrix} = \ \ \ \ \ &,& \begin{bmatrix} 3&-2\\ 5&4 \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} -7\\ 4 \end{bmatrix} \end{array} = $$
  2. Do the following two multiplications: $$ \begin{array}{cccc} %%%%% \begin{bmatrix} 3&-4\\ 2&5\\ 1&-1 \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} 1\\ 0 \end{bmatrix} = \ \ \ \ \ &,& %%%%% \begin{bmatrix} 3&-4\\ 2&5\\ 1&-1 \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} 0\\ 1 \end{bmatrix} = %%%%% \end{array} $$
  3. Make a hypothesis: Let $M$ by an $m\times n$ matrix and $\boldsymbol{x}$ be an $n$-dimensional column vector in which the $i$th component is $1$, and all other components are $0$. Then $M\cdot \boldsymbol{x} = $ ....
  4. Find a $2\times 2$ matrix with the property that when you multiply it and any 2-dimensional vector $\boldsymbol{x}$, you get that same $\boldsymbol{x}$ back again. I.e. $$ \begin{bmatrix} ?&?\\ ?&? \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} x_1\\ x_2 \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} x_1\\ x_2 \end{bmatrix} $$