Determinants of a Matrix Worksheets

How Do You Calculate the Determinant of a Matrix? By definition, the determinant is a scaler value of any squared matrix, which tells us the properties of the linear transformation. However, to find the determinant value of any 2 x 2 matrix, you can simply multiply the first and third element of matrix and subtract it with the product pf the second and fourth element in it. Let’s take a look at the example below.

However, if you want to find out the determinant of 3 x 3 matrix, then the number of steps somewhat change. Let's look at the following example.

Expanding by C₁,

If we look back to what we did, we can see that we expanded by 1st column and placed an imaginary pointer on its every element. In the middle of it, we neglected all elements in front, above, and below it. We also added a minus sign before the second element. Now, we will resolve the 2x2 matrices with the same method as mentioned above.