Re: for Adam RUSSELL HALVORSEN
- To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net (mathgroup)
- Subject: [mg405] Re: [mg394] for Adam RUSSELL HALVORSEN
- From: Lou Talman <me at talmanl.mscd.edu>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jan 95 09:23:58 -0700
Message for *** Adam RUSSELL HALVORSEN ***
(I don't know his e-mail)
Hello:
In number 0205-108 of MathSource I find
that there are Determinants of non square matrix,
for example
| {1,0,0} {0,1,0} {0,0,1} |
| |
| 1.2 -1. 2. |
| |
| 5. 4.33 -2. |
Those Determinants aren't possible, of course.
What is the problem ?
Thank-you,
------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.2 of Mathematica allowed this, returning the formal determinant
of this object. The result is, of course, the cross product of the
vectors that appear in the two bottom rows of the array. Version 2.0 and
above (to my knowledge) no longer support these formal determinants--which
is probably the right thing to do, but it makes finding cross products
less pleasant.
--Lou Talman
Metropolitan State College of Denver