Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / Paper 1 / 6 / a / Solution

A square matrix $A$ is a diagonalizable matrix over a specified field if some invertible matrix $P$ makes $P^{-1}AP$ diagonal. Equivalently, the underlying vector space has a basis of eigenvectors of $A$.

For example,The first is already diagonal. The second has only the eigenvalue one, of algebraic multiplicity two, but its eigenspace consists of $(x,0{)}^T$ and has dimension one. It cannot supply a two-vector eigenbasis.