14-240/Tutorial-October14

From Drorbn
Jump to navigationJump to search

Boris

Elementary and (Not So Elementary) Errors in Homework

Bad Notation


Let be matrices.


We want to equate to the set of all symmetric matrices. Here is the wrong way to write this:


.


Firstly, is the set of all linear combinations of . To equate it to a single

symmetric matrix makes no sense. Secondly, the elements are undefined. What are they suppose to

represent? Rational numbers? Real numbers? Members of the field of two elements? The following way of writing erases those

issues:


where is an arbitrary field.

Nikita