Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2006 / Paper 1 / 2 / a / i / Solution

The characteristic polynomial is $\det (\lambda I-M)=\lambda ({\lambda }^2-2)$. Solving the three eigenvector equations givesEach eigenspace consists of the scalar multiples of its displayed nonzero vector. Their pairwise dot products vanish: $v_{+}\cdot v_{-}=1-2+1=0$ and $v_{\pm }\cdot v_0=1-1=0$. This also agrees with the orthogonal diagonalization of a real symmetric matrix.