Which of the following is the formula for calculating the inverse of the matrix?
Correct Answer :
(1/|A|) adj A
Solution :
The correct option is (1/|A|) adj A.
To understand why this is the correct formula for finding the inverse of a matrix, let us review the definition of a matrix inverse and its derivation step-by-step.
1. Definition of the Inverse Matrix:
For a square matrix
of order
, its inverse matrix is denoted as
. By definition, multiplying a matrix by its inverse yields the identity matrix
:
2. The Relationship Between a Matrix and its Adjugate:
A fundamental theorem in linear algebra states that when a matrix
is multiplied by its adjugate matrix, denoted as
, the result is a diagonal matrix where each diagonal entry is equal to the determinant of
(denoted as
). Mathematically, this is expressed as:
3. Deriving the Inverse Formula:
Assuming the matrix
is non-singular (meaning its determinant is non-zero, or
), we can divide both sides of the relation by the scalar
:
Comparing this equation with the definition of the inverse matrix, , we can directly conclude that:
Thus, the correct formula to calculate the inverse of the matrix is indeed .
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