Table of Contents

Sample Midterm 2 Problems

Computational

1. Consider the following Hermitian 2×2 matrices $Q$, find an invertible matrix $A$ and diagonal matrices $D$, such that $Q = A^* D A$.

2. Find the eigenvalues of the following matrix, and for each eigenvalue find an eigenvector. $$ T = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 2 & 5 \cr 0 & 2 & 3 \cr 0 & 0 & -1 \end{bmatrix} $$

3. Let $A$ be the following $3 \times 3$ matrix, Use Gauss Elimination to find $\det A$ and $A^{-1}$ $$ A = \begin{bmatrix} 0 & 2 & -1 \cr 1 & 2 & 1 \cr 0 & 3 & -1 \end{bmatrix} $$

4. Let $v_1 = (0, 2, 1)$ , $v_2 = (1, 2, 3)$, and $v_3 = (1,1,1)$. Let $V_*$ denote the complete flag associated to $v_i$, namely $V_1 = span(v_1), V_2 = span(v_1, v_2), V_3 = span(v_1,v_2,v_3)$. Find a linear transformation $A$ on $\R^3$, that take the flag $V_*$ to the standard flag (i.e the flag associated to the standard basis $e_1,e_2,e_3$).

Conceptual

5. True or False

Others

For the application of the Sylvester rule, one can refer to the homework question.