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17.4EvaluatingDeterminants
Well,fromthefirsttwofactsalone,wecancomputethevalueofanydeterminant,andhencetheareaorvolumeorwhatever
ofanyparallelsidedfigure.

How?

Well,wecanaddmultiplesofrowstooneanothertogetridofoffdiagonalelements.Whenwearedone,wecandeducethe
valueofthedeterminantastheproductofthediagonalelements.

Actually,weneedonlymaketheelementsononesideofthediagonalinto0,andtaketheproductofthediagonalelements.
Gettingridoftheothersissometimesanicethingtodo,butwillnotaffectthediagonalelementsatall.

Let'sevaluatethedeterminantsofthefollowingarrays:

Ifwesubtract5timesthefirstrowfromthesecondinthefirstmatrixweget(0,3)forthesecondrow,sothedeterminantis

3.Inthesecondarraywesubtract timesthefirstrowfromthesecondandget(0,2)asnewsecondrow.Thedeterminant

ofthesecondmatrixistherefore2*2or4.

Thistellsus,bylinearitythatthedeterminantof

is3+4or1.Wecanverifythisbysubtracting ofthefirstrowfromthesecond.row,turningthatsecondrowinto ,

andtheproductofthediagonalelementsis1.

Thissameprocedureforevaluatingdeterminants(whichissometimescalled"rowreduction"andsometimescalled"Gaussian
elimination")canbeappliedtosquarearraysofanysize.Itiseasytodofor2by2arrays,butitisquiteeasytomakea
mistakeevenforsuch.Itisstillreasonablyeasyfor3by3'sbutmostpeoplewillmakesomesillymistakealongthewayand
getitwrongmostofthetime.EvenyouandIcanexpecttoget4by4determinantswrongmostofthetimewhendoingitby
handbythisapproach,becausethestepsaresostraightforwardandsoboring.Yourmindwillstrayalongthewayandyou
standanexcellentchanceofscrewingup.

Isthistheonlywaytoevaluateadeterminant?

No,thereareatleasttwootherways,oneofwhichisequallyboringandpronetoyourmakingerrors.Theotherismagical
andgreatfun,butsurprisinglyitisnevertaught,andpracticallynobodynotreadingthishaseverheardofit.

Thestandardapproachistowriteaformulafortheresultsofthemethodjustdescribed.Ifyoustartwithrows(a,b)and(c,d).
Toturnthecinto0yousubtract timesthefirstrowfromthesecond.Theresultingdiagonalelementsarethenaand

andtheirproductisadbc.Thisistheformulaforthedeterminantofageneraltwobytwoarray.

Forthreebythrees,youwillgetproductsofelementsonefromeachrowandonefromeachcolumn(asyoumustsinceeach
suchproductmustbelinearineachrowandcolumn).Therearesixsuchproducts,andtheyalloccurwithappropriatesigns.
Applyingthisformulaisalsoanerrorproneoperation,ifdonebyhand.

Exercise17.6Evaluatethefollowingdeterminantsbyanymethodabove.
Sowhatisthemagicalapproach?

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