1.

History of Determinants
3rd century BC and 16th Century
Determinants were first used in the Chinese mathematics textbook The Nine Chapters on
the Mathematical Art Chinese scholars, around the In Europe, 2 2 determinants were
considered by Cardano at the end of the 16th century and larger ones by Leibniz.
17th Century
In Japan, Seki Takakazu is credited with the discovery with the resultant and determinant
(at first in 1683, the complete version no later than 1710). In Europe, Cramer (1750) added to the
theory, treating the subject in relation to sets of equations. The recurrence law was first
announced by Bzout (1764).
It was Vandermonde (1771) who first recognized determinants as independent functions.
Laplace (1772) gave the general method of expanding a determinant in terms of its
complementary minors: Vandermonde had already given a special case. Immediately following,
Lagrange (1773) treated determinants of the second and third order. Lagrange was the first to
apply determinants to questions of elimination theory; he proved many special cases of general
identities.
18TH Century
Gauss (1801) made the next advance. Like Lagrange, he made much use of determinants
in the theory of numbers. He introduced the word determinant (Laplace had used resultant),
though not in the present signification, but rather as applied to the discriminant of a quantic.
Gauss also arrived at the notion of reciprocal (inverse) determinants, and came very near the
multiplication theorem.
The next contributor of importance is Binet (1811, 1812), who formally stated the
theorem relating to the product of two matrices of m columns and n rows, which for the special
case of m = n reduces to the multiplication theorem. On the same day (November 30, 1812) that
Binet presented his paper to the Academy, Cauchy also presented one on the subject. (See
CauchyBinet formula.) In this he used the word determinant in its present sense, summarized
and simplified what was then known on the subject, improved the notation, and gave the
multiplication theorem with a proof more satisfactory than Binet's. With him begins the theory in
its generality.
The next important figure was Jacobi (from 1827). He early used the functional
determinant which Sylvester later called the Jacobian, and in his memoirs in Crelle for 1841 he
specially treats this subject, as well as the class of alternating functions which Sylvester has

called alternants. About the time of Jacobi's last memoirs, Sylvester (1839) and Cayley began
their work.
The study of special forms of determinants has been the natural result of the completion
of the general theory. Axisymmetric determinants have been studied by Lebesgue, Hesse, and
Sylvester; persymmetric determinants by Sylvester and Hankel; circulants by Catalan,
Spottiswoode, Glaisher, and Scott; skew determinants and Pfaffians, in connection with the
theory of orthogonal transformation, by Cayley; continuants by Sylvester; Wronskians (so called
by Muir) by Christoffel and Frobenius; compound determinants by Sylvester, Reiss, and Picquet;
Jacobians and Hessians by Sylvester; and symmetric gauche determinants by Trudi. Of the
textbooks on the subject Spottiswoode's was the first. In America, Hanus (1886), Weld (1893),
and Muir/Metzler (1933) published treatises.

2. Application of Matrices
2.a. Graph theory
The adjacency matrix of a finite graph is a basic notion of graph theory. It records which
vertices of the graph are connected by an edge. Matrices containing just two different values (1
and 0 meaning for example "yes" and "no", respectively) are called logical matrices. The
distance (or cost) matrix contains information about distances of the edges. These concepts can
be applied to websites connected hyperlinks or cities connected by roads etc., in which case
(unless the road network is extremely dense) the matrices tend to be sparse, i.e., contain few
nonzero entries. Therefore, specifically tailored matrix algorithms can be used in network theory.
2.b. Analysis and geometry
The Hessian matrix of a differentiable function : Rn R consists of the second
derivatives of with respect to the several coordinate directions
2.c. Probability theory and statistics
Stochastic matrices are square matrices whose rows are probability vectors, i.e., whose
entries are non-negative and sum up to one. Stochastic matrices are used to define Markov
chains with finitely many states.
2.d. Symmetries and transformations in physics
Linear transformations and the associated symmetries play a key role in modern physics.
For example, elementary particles in quantum field theory are classified as representations of

the Lorentz group of special relativity and, more specifically, by their behavior under the spin
group.

2.e. Linear combinations of quantum states

Collision reactions such as occur in particle accelerators, where non-interacting particles
head towards each other and collide in a small interaction zone, with a new set of non-interacting
particles as the result, can be described as the scalar product of outgoing particle states and a
linear combination of ingoing particle states. The linear combination is given by a matrix known
as the S-matrix, which encodes all information about the possible interactions between particles.
2.f. Normal modes
A general application of matrices in physics is to the description of linearly coupled
harmonic systems. The equations of motion of such systems can be described in matrix form,
with a mass matrix multiplying a generalized velocity to give the kinetic term, and a force matrix
multiplying a displacement vector to characterize the interactions.
2.g. Geometrical optics
Geometrical optics provides further matrix applications. In this approximative theory,
the wave nature of light is neglected. The result is a model in which light rays are indeed
geometrical rays.
2.f. Electronics
Traditional mesh analysis in electronics leads to a system of linear equations that can be
described with a matrix.

3. Sample Matrices Problems

A. Addition

B. Multiplication

C. Word Problem
An outbreak of Chicken Pox hit the local public schools. Approximately 15% of the male
and female juniors and 25% of the male and female seniors are currently healthy, 35% of the
male and female juniors and 30% of the male and female seniors are currently sick, and 50% of
the male and female juniors and 45% of the male and female seniors are carriers of Chicken
Pox.
There are 100 male juniors, 80 male seniors, 120 female juniors, and 100 female seniors.
Using two matrices and one matrix equation, find out how many males and how many females
(dont need to divide by class) are healthy, sick, and carriers.
Solution:
The best way to approach these types of problems is to set up a few manual calculations and see
what were doing. For example, to find out how many healthy males we would have, wed set
up the following equation and do the calculation: .15(100) + .25(80) = 35. Likewise, to find
out how many females are carriers, we can calculate: .50(120) + .45(100) = 105.
We can tell that this looks like matrix multiplication. And since we want to end up with a
matrix that has males and females by healthy, sick and carriers, we know it will be either a 2 x 3
or a 3 x 2. But since we know that we have both juniors and seniors with males and females, the
first matrix will probably be a 2 x 2. That means, in order to do matrix multiplication, the second
matrix that holds the %s of students will have to be a 2 x 3, since there are 3 types of students,
healthy (H), sick (S), and carriers (C). Notice how the percentages in the rows in the second
matrix add up to 100%. Also notice that if we add up the number of students in the first matrix
and the last matrix, we come up with 400.
So we can come up with the following matrix multiplication:

So there will be 35 healthy males, 59 sick males, and 86 carrier males, 43 healthy females, 72
sick females, and 95 carrier females.

Refferences:
http://www.shelovesmath.com/algebra/advanced-algebra/matrices-and-solving-systems-withmatrices/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(mathematics)
http://math.tutorvista.com/algebra/application-of-matrices-and-determinants.html