I Need Maths Help: Matrices

[Scotty226]

I need help.



I can't find the pattern in part a and haven't started part b
I suck at maths so could someone give me a hint or something would be nice

[Scotty226]

Here's 'M' worked out...

[SEAL5327]

[cpt_Slow]

You've probably already spotted the pattern but dismissed it as too obvious. Do you know your powers of 2? If not, try working out 2^n for each value of n. I can't really spot any decent pattern in b after going to n=3,4 but I presume it just wants you to note that they're all in the same kind of form:
[ x y; y x]

[Scotty226]

That helps me a bit. thanks for your help

[Boblob801]

Basically all I can see is they took the numbers in the function and applied a power. So 2^n.

I'm not sure what you are meant to be observing but its virtually the same principle for the second part except they factorized out 2.

[Andy_Hack]

[cpt_Slow]

Well there is a specific way of raising matrices to a power Boblob and when you apply that method you get the results shown. It just so happens that if the matrix is diagonal (all elements zero outside of the leading diagonal as in this case) you can apply the power directly to the elements which is a very useful property and what I believe the task is designed to demonstrate.

I'm not really sure what part b is demonstrating, but I think the pattern I mentioned is all they're looking for.

[pinit24/7#12]

I thought my class was hard....

[Scotty226]

Year 12, second hardest maths... i know, there's a harder maths

[Pumaxcs]

You spelled mattress wrong, stupid.