Precalculus : Matrices and Vectors

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for Precalculus

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Example Questions

Example Question #31 : Determine If Two Vectors Are Parallel Or Perpendicular

Find the angle between the vectors and .

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

To determine the angle between our two vectors, we can use the fact that for any 2 vectors and , where is the magnitude and is the angle between the 2 vectors, which is what we are looking for.

Working from the left, we can first find the dot product,

Now we'll find the magnitudes of the two vectors by using the Pythagorean Theorem:

take the square root of both sides

 

 

Now we can plug these values back into the equation to start solving for theta:

multiply the two numbers inside the radicals:

divide both sides by

 take the inverse cosine of both sides

Example Question #542 : Pre Calculus

Find the angle between the vectors  and . Note that the first vector is in polar form and the second is in component form.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

To find the angle between two vectors, we can use the fact that . In order to find the dot product, we need to convert the vector to component form. This is easiest to do after drawing a quick sketch of the vector:

Vector 5

To find the vertical component, set up an equation involving sine, since the vertical component is the side of a right triangle across from the 20-degree angle:

evaluate the sine of 20, then multiply by 13

To find the horizontal component, set up an equation involving cosine, since the horizontal component is the side of a right triangle adjacent to the 20-degree angle:

evaluate the cosine of 20, then multiply by 13

The component form of this vector can be written as

 

Next, we can find the magnitude of the vector already in component form by using the Pythagorean Theorem:

take the square root of both sides

 

Now we have all the information that we need to solve for theta.

Find the dot product for the left side:

which we can now put back in the equation:

now divide both sides by

take invese cosine of both sides

Example Question #33 : Matrices And Vectors

Find  where  and . Note that is in component form while is in polar form.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

First, convert to component form. The easiest way to do that would be with special right triangles, knowing that for a 45-45-90 triangle the ratio of the hypotenuse to both of the legs is . So if the magnitude of the vector is , then the components must both be 3.

This could also be found by setting up and solving the equations:

and

Now that both vectors are component form, we see that we're multiplying

Example Question #31 : Determine If Two Vectors Are Parallel Or Perpendicular

Which of the following best explains whether the two vectors above are perpendicular or parallel?

 

Possible Answers:

Parallel, because their dot product is zero.

Perpendicular, because their dot product is zero.

Parallel, because their dot product is one.

Perpendicular, because their dot product is one.

Neither perpendicular nor parallel, because their dot product is neither zero nor one.

Correct answer:

Perpendicular, because their dot product is zero.

Explanation:

Two vectors are perpendicular if their dot product is zero, and parallel if their dot product is 1.

Take the dot product of our two vectors to find the answer:

Using our given vectors:

Thus our two vectors are perpendicular.

Example Question #31 : Matrices And Vectors

Find the product.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

When we multiply a scalar (regular number) by a matrix, all we need to do is mulitply it to every entry inside the matrix: 

5

Example Question #32 : Matrices And Vectors

Find the product.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

When we multiply a scalar (regular number) by a matrix, all we need to do is mulitply it through to every entry inside the matrix:

6

Example Question #2 : Multiplication Of Matrices

Find the product.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

When we multiply a scalar (regular number) by a matrix, all we need to do is mulitply it through to every entry inside the matrix:

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Example Question #4 : Find The Product Of A Matrix And A Scalar

We consider the following matrix:

let

 what matrix do we get when we perform the following product:

Possible Answers:

The product depends on knowing the value of m.

The product depends on knowing the size of A

We can't perform this multiplication.

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We note k is simply a scalar. To do this multiplication all we need to do is to multply each entry of the matrix by k.

we see that when we multiply we have :

this gives the entry of the matrix kA.

Therefore the resulting matrix is :

 

Example Question #5 : Find The Product Of A Matrix And A Scalar

We consider the matrix defined below.

Find the sum :

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Since we are adding the matrix to itself, we have the same size, we can perform the matrices addition.

We know that when adding matrices, we add them componenwise. Let (i,j) be any entry of the addition matrix. We add the entry form A to the entry from B which is the same as A. This means that to add A+A  we simply add each entry of A to itself.

Since the entries from A are the same and given by 1 and the entries from B=A are the same and given by 1, we add these two to obtain:

1+1 and this means that each entry of A+A is 2. We continue in this fashion by additing the entries of A each one to itself n times to obtain that the entries of A+A+....A( n  times ) are given by:

Example Question #3 : Multiplication Of Matrices

Let  be a positive integer and let  be defined as below:

Find the product .

Possible Answers:

We can't multiply  and .

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We note n is simply a scalar. To do this multiplication all we need to do is to multply each entry of the matrix by n.

We see that when we multiply we have : .

This means that each entry of the resulting matrix is .

This gives the nA which is :

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