Given A=((-1, 2), (3, 4)) and B=((-4, 3), (5, -2)), how do you find AB?

1 Answer
Sep 26, 2016

"AXB" = ((14, -7), (8, 1))

Explanation:

Check first whether the matrices are compatible?

color(blue)(2)"X"color(red)(2) and color(red)(2)"X"color(blue)(2)

are compatible (the middle numbers in red are the same)
and will give a color(blue)(2X2) matrix

The elements in each ROW in A must be multiplied by the elements of the COLUMNS of B, then find the sum each time.

A=((-1, 2), (3, 4)) and B=((-4, 3), ( 5, -2))

The separate calculations give:

color(white)(xx)4color(white)(xxx)-3color(white)(xxx)-12color(white)(xxx.x)9
color(white)(x)ul10color(white)(xxxx)ul(-4)color(white)(xxxxx)ul20color(white)(xxx)ul(-8)
color(white)(x)14color(white)(x.xx)-7color(white)(xxx.xx)8color(white)(xxx.x)1

"AXB" = ((14, -7), (8, 1))