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Matrix Arithmetic

Part 5: Diagonal Matrices

A matrix D is called diagonal if all the entries of D that are not on the main diagonal are zero.

Enter the diagonal matrices D1 and D2 defined in your worksheet.

  1. Compute (D1)4. Look at the answer carefully, and explain how you could have computed (D1)4 in your head.

  2. Compute D1D2 and D2D1. What do you conclude about multiplication of diagonal matrices? (Note: This conclusion about diagonal matrices does not hold for arbitrary matrices -- see Part 1.)

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