Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/ib/paper-1/6d/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ib Paper 1 6D Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A unit lower triangular is invertible. For , , so an LDL decomposition with positive diagonal givesAlso is symmetric. Hence is a positive-definite matrix.
For the specified matrix, comparing entries successively gives , , , , andThusThe last pivot is negative, so this particular factorization is outside the positive-diagonal case proved above. Indeed has , and . There is no positive-diagonal LDL factorization for the printed matrix. The unrestricted LDL decomposition above is nevertheless valid.
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