Educational Software Packets

Basic Matrix Operations For College Algebra (with results in rational or decimal representation)

This software was created to provide interested students in College Algebra course some basic tools for verifying their solutions to problems involving the inverse and the determinant of a matrix of dimension 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4, and the solution to a system of linear equations of 2 equations with 2 unknowns, 3 equations with 3 unknowns or 4 equations with 4 unknowns.

There are two ways in which you can run the software. The first one is simply by clicking the link here and the second one is to download the jar file to your computer and then double-click on the jar file itself.

Shown above is a screen-shot of the basic interface of this piece of software and the highlighted tab was on "2 x 2" for dealing properties of 2 by 2 matrices. The slots on the left are deserved for the elements of the desired matrix. Once the slots are fully filled with numbers, you may click the button labeled "Compute Determinant" or the button labeled "Compute Inverse". To use the button labeled "Find Solution to the Linear Equation", the slots on the right are also needed to be filled with numbers; these slots are deserved for the elements of the vector b in the matrix equation of Ax=b (in this case, the slots on the left are deserved for the elements of the matrix A). The result will be printed out in the text area located below the buttons.

This software can return the result in either rational (or fractional) or decimal representation depending upon the inputs you give. If the inputs are integers (e.g., "-1", "2") or rational numbers (i.e., in the form of "1/2" or "-3/2") or both then the software will return the result in rational representation. If there is any input with decimal representation such as "1.8" or "-2." or "2.0" (the software looks for the dot "." in your inputs) , then the software will return the result in decimal representation.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to George Alexander of Madison Area Technical College for suggestions of other software packages with similar or more advanced capabilities. The most notable one is Wolfram Alpha. The software feature on rational representation was inspired by Wolfram Alpha.

If you have any question about the software packet(s) here, please don't hesitate to contact me:

CONTACT INFO:

Email: cgkoay AT uwalumni DOT com (replace "AT" with "@" and "DOT" with "." )