| 4 CHAPTER 1 Linear Equations in Linear Algebra
A system of linear equations has
1. no solution, or
2. exactly one solution, or
3. infinitely many solutions.
A system of linear equations is said to be consistent if it has either one solution or
infinitely many solutions; a system is inconsistent if it has no solution.
Matrix Notation
The essential information of a linear system can be recorded compactly in a
rectangular array called a matrix. Given the system
(3)
with the coefficients of each variable aligned in columns, the matrix
is called the coefficient matrix (or matrix of coefficients) of the system (3),and
(4)
is called the augmented matrix of the system. (The second row here contains a zero because the second equation could be written as .) An augmented matrix of a system consists of the coefficient matrix with an added column containing the constants from the right sides of the equations.
The size of a matrix tells how many rows and columns it has. The augmented matrix (4) above has 3 rows and 4 columns and is called a 3x4 (read “3 by 4”) matrix. If m and n are positive integers, an m n matrix is a rectangular array of numbers with m rows and n columns. (The number of rows always comes first.) Matrix notation will simplify the calculations in the examples that follow.
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