sage: R.<a> = PolynomialRing(QQ,"a")
sage: A=matrix([[0,1,1],[2,2,-2],[-1,a,3]])
sage: A.echelon_form()

[     2      2     -2]
[     0     -1     -1]
[     0      0 -a + 1]


On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 10:45 PM, Matt Rissler <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Basically, I'm having student look for the x that makes the matrix
> singular, or the columns linearly dependent, or ...  However Sage
> behaves like so:
>
> sage: A=matrix([[0,1,1],[2,2,-2],[-1,x,3]])
> sage: A
> [ 0  1  1]
> [ 2  2 -2]
> [-1  x  3]
> sage: A.echelon_form()
> [1 0 0]
> [0 1 0]
> [0 0 1]
>
>
> Is there anyway to make it so Sage doesn't assume that it can rescale
> by dividing by whatever function of x we get in the bottom row (in
> this case 1-x), because that might be 0?
>
> Doing the row reduction 'by hand', ie making Sage do it, works, but it
> would be nice if echelon form did it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt
> >
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support
URL: http://www.sagemath.org
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to