Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/ib/paper-2/19d/b/solution

A QR decomposition of an matrix, , is , where is an orthogonal matrix and is and upper trapezoidal: for . In particular its bottom rows vanish.
Successive left Givens rotations annihilate the entries below the diagonal, column by column. When working on column , rotate rows and ; their earlier columns are already zero, so the earlier eliminations persist. If , then
A product of orthogonal matrices is orthogonal. The construction remains valid for a rank-deficient matrix, although uniqueness is not asserted. This is QR decomposition by Givens rotations.

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