Question

can someone explain the basics of matrix to me and the use of it?

Answer 1

The most basic use of a matrix is to represent linear equations
take these three equations

3x+2y=3
2x+5y=65
34x+23y=0

we can easly solve this with a matrix representation.

even thought the steps we would take to solve it are pretty much the same, it is much nicer, and more algrythmic in matrix form.

this is a very basic matrix representation, but linear algebra can be used to represent just about anything, and using linear algebra often simplifies systems, and make them very easy to work with.

Answer 2

how would i solve that with a linear representation though?

Answer 3

google row reduction, its very hard to show matricies on this site.

Answer 4

row reduction seems a little bit like elimination by the sounds of it.. but ill search it

Answer 5

but the real power of matricies and their properties, so far for me, is in getting new orthonormal basis, and linear transformation.

Answer 6

it is the exact same thing, but you can see how a matrix makes it much nicer.

Answer 7

ok, i dont know why but in algebra 2 there is no talk of matrices and i wasnt sure when that would come up

Answer 8

the only use you would have for them yet is row reduction, but this does not save much time unless you are looking at 30 equations and 30 unknowns....linear algebra comes after calculus.

Answer 9

oh, ok thanks

Answer 10

np