Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / ia / Paper 3 / 8B / a

Using the monic convention for the characteristic polynomial, expand the determinant along the last column:For the eigenvalue $1$, the equations $(A-I)v=0$ give $v_2=v_1$ and $v_3=0$. Thus every corresponding nonzero eigenvector is a nonzero multiple of $(1,1,0{)}^T$. For the eigenvalue $2$, the first two equations give $v_2=2v_1$ and $v_1=0$, so every corresponding nonzero eigenvector is a nonzero multiple of $(0,0,1{)}^T$. ThereforeThese eigenspaces together have dimension $2$, so they cannot provide an eigenvector basis of ${\mathbb{R}}^3$. The matrix is not diagonalizable; the eigenvalue $1$ has algebraic multiplicity $2$ but geometric multiplicity $1$.