Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2023 / iii / Paper 335 / 3 / i / Solution

Because $A$ is a real symmetric positive-definite matrix, the finite-dimensional spectral theorem supplies an orthonormal eigenbasis $u_1,\dots ,u_n$ withIts eigendecomposition is also its singular value decomposition. If $e=y^{(\delta )}-y$, thensoThe operator norms satisfy $\Vert A{\Vert }_2={\lambda }_n$ and $\Vert A^{-1}{\Vert }_2=1/{\lambda }_1$. Therefore the worst-case relative perturbation bound isThe ratio ${\kappa }_2(A)$ is the spectral condition number of a positive-definite matrix. A large ratio means that data noise aligned with an eigenvector for the smallest eigenvalue is strongly amplified, so the inverse problem is ill conditioned.