Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / ia / Paper 1 / 7A / iv / Solution

Direct multiplication givesTake $D=B$ and $C=A$ in the preceding result: $B$ has the three distinct eigenvalues $2,4,6$ and the matrices commute. The common eigenbasis from part (i) givesIndeed $AS=S\mathrm{diag}(1,2,2)$ and $BS=S\mathrm{diag}(2,4,6)$, and $\det S=2\ne 0$. These equalities directly verify the simultaneous diagonalization.