Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / Paper 1 / 5 / b / Solution

An invertible matrix is a square matrix for which there is a matrix $A^{-1}$ with $A{A}^{-1}=A^{-1}A=I$. Write its assumed diagonalization as $A=P\Lambda P^{-1}$, where $P$ is invertible and $\Lambda =\mathrm{diag}({\lambda }_1,\dots ,{\lambda }_n)$. ThenIf the determinant is nonzero, every ${\lambda }_j$ is nonzero, so ${\Lambda }^{-1}=\mathrm{diag}({\lambda }_j^{-1})$ exists and $A^{-1}=P{\Lambda }^{-1}{P}^{-1}$. If the determinant is zero, at least one eigenvalue is zero; its nonzero eigenvector is mapped to zero, which an invertible map cannot do. HenceThe equivalence holds even without diagonalizability, but the eigenbasis proves the stated case directly.