SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

MAT 111 - Linear Algebra

Academic Session 2018/2019, Semester 2

Tutorial 9

The following questions are adapted from the text book, (Anton, H and Chris, R (2014).
Elementary Linear Algebra with Supplemental Applications, 11th ed. John Wiley & Sons)

1. Find the characteristic equations of the following matrices.

 
4 3
(a) .
0 −2
 
5 1 3
(b)  0 −1 0  .
0 1 2
2. Find the eigenvalues and bases for the eigenspaces of the matrices in Question 1.

3. Find the eigenvalues and bases for the eigenspaces of A25 , where
 
−1 −2 −2
A= 1 2 1 .
−1 −1 0

4. Find det(A) given that A has the characteristic polynomial p(λ) = λ3 + 2λ2 − 4λ − 5.

5. Show that A and B are not similar.

   
2 1 2 0
(a) A = B= .
3 4 3 3
   
4 2 0 0 3 4
(b) A =  2 1 0  B =  0 7 2 .
1 1 7 0 0 4

6. Show that the characteristic equation of a 2 × 2 matrix A can be expressed as λ2 − tr(A)λ +

det(A) = 0.

7. Find the eigenvalues of  

0 1 0
A= 0 0 1 .
3 2
k −3k 3k

8. Determine whether the matrix is diagonalizable.

 
4 0
(a) .
−2 4
 
2 −3
(b) .
1 −1
 9. Compute the stated power of  
1 −2 8
A =  0 −1 0  .
0 0 −1

(a) A1000 .
(b) A−1000 .
(c) A2301 .
(d) A−2301 .

10. Let  
  −2 0 0
−7 −6
(i) A= . (ii) A =  0 1 1  .
15 12
0 1 1

(a) Find the eigenvalues of A.

(b) Find the bases for eigenspaces of A.
(c) Find a matrix P that diagonalizes A and the associated diagonal matrix D
(d) Is A invertible?

11. A square matrix A is called nilpotent if An = 0 for some positive integer n. What are the
eigenvalues of a nilpotent matrix?

12. Suppose that a characteristic polynomial of some matrix A is found to be

p(λ) = (λ − 1)(λ − 3)2 (λ − 4)3 .

Answer the following.

(a) What can you say about the dimension of the eigenspaces of A?
(b) What can you say about the dimension of the eigenspaces if you know that A is
diagonalizable?