MATINV

Syntax

MATINV matrix2,matrix1

Location

Math Package

The command MATINV takes the array matrix1, inverts it and stores the result in matrix2.

Inverting is a mathematical term and produces a result from a matrix which is similar to finding the reciprocal of a number, namely, the relation is expressed by the fact that the product of a number and its reciprocal is one and the product of a matrix and its inverse matrix is the identity matrix:

n=10: DIM A(n,n), B(n,n), C(n,n)
MATRND A

A is a random matrix.

MATINV A,B

makes B the inverted matrix of A.

MATMULT C,A,B

Multiply A with B and store the result in C. C will be almost identical to the matrix ONE defined with:

DIM ONE(n,n): MATIDN ONE

C and ONE do not have exactly the same values because of the limited precision of the QL maths package. Two conditions are absolutely necessary for MATINV to work:

- DET (matrix1) <> 0
- matrix1 and matrix2 must be square matrices

Example

A matrix A and an array b form a so-called “linear equation system” which has a solution x which is an array like b. This example will find the solutions x(i) of the system, for any positive value of n (the size of the matrix):

100 n=5
110 DIM A(n,n), AINV(n,n), b(n), x(n)
120 MATRND A: MATRND b
130 :
140 MATINV A,AINV
150 MATSCALM AINV,b TO x
160 PRINT "Solutions:"\x
170 IF ABS(DET)<1E-6 THEN PRINT "(dubious results)"
180 :
190 DEFine PROCedure MATSCALM (matrix,array1,array2)
200   LOCal i,j
210   FOR i=0 TO DIMN(matrix,1)
220     array2(i)=0
230     FOR j=0 TO DIMN(matrix,2)
240       array2(i)=array2(i)+array1(j)\*matrix(i,j)
250     END FOR j
260   END FOR i
270 END DEFine MATSCALM

The method of solving a linear equation system by calculating the inverted matrix is known as Cramer’s Rule. The advantage is that if the matrix A is constant and only the array b varies for other situations, MATINV needs only be called once and not afterwards for each value of the array b.

NOTE

Calculation time takes longer as the size of the matrix increases eg. the above example will take nearly an hour to calculate n=100. MATINV cannot be stopped with <CTRL><SPACE> whilst number crunching.

CROSS-REFERENCE

It is highly recommended to check if DET is very close to zero after MATINV has been executed, if this is the case, MATINV may have found a result which does not exist:

IF ABS(DET) < 1E-6 THEN PRINT "dubious result"

This works because MATINV calls DET internally.