MATH 238 Worksheet 1

1.1. System of Linear Equations

1. Solve by Gauss-Jordan elimination.


 x1 + x2 − x3 + 2x4 = 1

x + x − x − x = −1
1 2 3 4
(1)

 x1 + 2x2 + x3 + 2x4 = −1

2x1 + 2x2 + x3 + x4 = 2


1
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

 x1 + 3x2 − 2x3 + 2x5 = 0

2x + 6x − 5x − 2x + 4x − 3x = −1
1 2 3 4 5 6
(2)

 5x3 + 10x4 + 15x6 = 5

2x1 + 6x2 + 8x4 + 4x5 + 18x6 = 6

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2. Suppose that the augmented matrix for a system of linear equations has been
reduced by elementary row operations to give the following reduced row-echlon form for
the coefficient matrix. What is the solution to each of the system of linear equations?
 
  1 6 0 0 4 −2  
1 0 0 4 −1  0 0 1 0 3 1  1 0 0 0
 0 1 0 2 6 ,   0 1 2 0 .
 0 0 0 1 5 2 ,

0 0 1 3 2 0 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 0
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3. Gaussian Elimination is another systematic approach for solving linear systems.

Just like Gauss-Jordan Elimination, it uses elementary row operations to transform the
augmented matrix, but this time we do this so that the coefficient matrix has the row-
echlon form (not the reduced row-echlon form.)

row-echlon form
a. Any rows of zeros appear at the bottom.
b. The first nonzero entry of a nonzero row is 1.
c. The leading 1 of a nonzero row appears to the right of the leading 1 of any preceding row.

Ex) Solve by Gaussian Elimination and back substitution. You will figure out what
“back substitution” means at the last step where you try to reach the final answer.

x + y + 2z = 9

2x + 4y − 3z = 1

3x + 6y − 5z = 0
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4. A system of linear equations is said to be homogeneous if it could be written in

the form 
a11 x1 + a12 x2 + · · · + a1n xn = 0


a21 x1 + a22 x2 + · · · + a2n xn = 0

..


 .

a x + a x + · · · + a x = 0
m1 1 m2 2 mn n
All homogeneous linear systems have at least the trivial solution x1 = x2 = ··· = xn = 0.

Ex) Are there any non-trivial solution to the homogeneous system of linear equations?
Check by Gauss-Jordan Elimination.


 2x1 + 2x2 − x3 + x5 = 0

−x − x + 2x − 3x + x = 0
1 2 3 4 5

 x 1 + x 2 − 2x 3 − x 5 = 0

x3 + x4 + x5 = 0


Theorem A homogeneous system of m linear equations in n variables with m < n has

infinitely many non-trivial solutions.

• This theorem is not true for non-homogeneous systems. Find a counter example.