Link to this document's Jupyter Notebook

In order to successfully complete this assignment you need to participate both individually and in groups during class. If you attend class in-person then have one of the instructors check your notebook and sign you out before leaving class. If you are attending asynchronously, turn in your assignment using D2L no later than 11:59pm on the day of class. See links at the end of this document for access to the class timeline for your section.

In order to successfully complete this assignment you need to participate both individually and in groups during class. If you attend class in-person then have one of the instructors check your notebook and sign you out before leaving class. If you are attending asyncronously, turn in your assignment using D2L no later than 11:59pm on the day of class. See links at the end of this document for access to the class timeline for your section.

In-Class Assignment: Linear Algebra and Python

Image showing an instructor writing on the board instruction for Gauss-Jordan.  These include 1) 1 Row 1 column 1 2) Kill the rest of the column 3) 1 Row 2 Column 2 4) Kill the rest of the column 4) Answer as a point (x,y).  Although not really an algorithm these instructions give a general idea of how Gauss-Jordan works

Image from: YouTube

Agenda for today's class (80 minutes)

  1. (20 minutes) Pre Class Review
  2. (20 minutes) Solving Systems of Linear Equations
  3. (20 minutes) Underdetermined Systems
  4. (20 minutes) Practice Curve Fitting Example

1. Pre Class Review

Today we will go over our quiz from last week.


2. Solving Systems of Linear Equations

Remember the following set of equations from the mass weight example:

Image showing two balanced beams, each with three weights. In the top beam is unknown weight A is a distance of 40 to the left of the fulcrum, unknown weight B is a distance of 15 to the left of the fulcrum and a weight of 2 is 50 to the right of the fulcrum. In the bottom beam is the same unknown weights.  Weight A is now a distance of 50 to the right of the fulcrum, weight B is a distance of 25 to the left of the fulcrum and the weight of 2 is a distance of 25 to the right of the fulcrum. $$40A + 15B = 100$$ $$25B = 50 + 50A$$

As you know, the above system of equations can be written as an Augmented Matrix in the following form:

$$ \left[ \begin{matrix} 40 & 15 \\ -50 & 25 \end{matrix} \, \middle\vert \, \begin{matrix} 100 \\ 50 \end{matrix} \right] $$

QUESTION: Split apart the augmented matrix ($ \left[ \begin{matrix} A \end{matrix} \, \middle\vert \, \begin{matrix} b \end{matrix} \right] $) into it's left size ($2 \times 2$) matrix $A$ and it's right ($2x1$) matrix $b$. Define the matrices $A$ and $b$ as numpy matrices:

QUESTION: solve the above system of equations using the np.linalg.solve function and store the value in a vector named x:


3. Underdetermined Systems

Sometimes we have systems of linear equations where we have more unknowns than equations, in this case we call the system "underdetermined." These types of systems can have infinite solutions. i.e., we can not find an unique $x$ such that $Ax=b$. In this case, we can find a set of equations that represent all of the solutions that solve the problem by using Gauss Jordan and the Reduced Row Echelon form. Lets consider the following example:

$$\begin{bmatrix}5&-2&2 & 1 \\ 4 & -3 &4 &2 \\ 4& -6 &7 & 4\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}x_1\\x_2\\x_3\\x_4\end{bmatrix}=\begin{bmatrix}1\\2\\3\end{bmatrix}$$

QUESTION Define an augmented matrix $M$ that represents the above system of equations:

QUESTION What is the Reduced Row Echelon form for A?

Notice how the above RREF form of matrix A is different from what we have seen in the past. In this case not all of our values for $x$ are unique. When we write down a solution to this problem by defining the variables by one or more of the undefined variables. for example, here we can see that $x_4$ is undefined. So we say $x_4 = x_4$, i.e. $x_4$ can be any number we want. Then we can define $x_3$ in terms of $x_4$. In this case $x_3 = \frac{11}{15} - \frac{4}{5}$. The entire solution can be written out as follows:

$$ \begin{align*} x_1 &= \frac{1}{15} + \frac{1}{15}x_4 \\ x_2 &= \frac{2}{5} + \frac{2}{5}x_4 \\ x_3 &= \frac{11}{15} - \frac{4}{5}x_4 \\ x_4 &= x_4 \end{align*} $$

DO THIS Review the above answer and make sure you understand how we get this answer from the Reduced Row Echelon form from above.

Sometimes, in an effort to make the solution more clear, we introduce new variables (typically, $r,s,t$) and substitute them in for our undefined variables so the solution would look like the following:

$$ \begin{align*} x_1 &= \frac{1}{15} + \frac{1}{15}r \\ x_2 &= \frac{2}{5} + \frac{2}{5}xr \\ x_3 &= \frac{11}{15} - \frac{4}{5}r \\ x_4 &= r \end{align*} $$

We can find a particular solution to the above problem by inputing any number for $r$. For example, set r equal to zero and create a vector for all of the $x$ values.

$$ \begin{align*} x_1 &= \frac{1}{15}\\ x_2 &= \frac{2}{5}\\ x_3 &= \frac{11}{15} \\ x_4 &= 0 \end{align*} $$

DO THIS Define two more matrixes $A$, $b$ representing the above system of equations $Ax=b$:

Now let us check our answer by multipying matrix $A$ by our solution $x$ and see if we get $b$

DO THIS Now go back and pick a different value for $r$ and see that it also produces a valid solution for $Ax=b$.


4. Practice Curve Fitting Example

Consider the following polynomial with constant scalars $a$, $b$, and $c$, that falls on the $xy$-plane:

$$f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c$$

QUESTION: Is this function linear? Why or why not?

Put your answer to the above question here.

Assume that we do not know the values of $a$, $b$ and $c$, but we do know that the points (1,2), (-1,12), and (2,3) are on the polynomial. We can substitute the known points into the equation above. For eample, using point (1,2) we get the following equation:

$$2 = a1^2 + b1 + c$$$$\text{or}$$$$2 = a + b + c$$

QUESTION: Generate two more equations by substituting points (-1,12) and (2,3) into the above equation:

Put your answer to the above question here. (See if you can use latex as I did above)

QUESTION: If we did this right, we should have three equations and three unknowns ($a,b,c$). Note also that these equations are linear (how did that happen?). Transform this system of equations into two matrices $A$ and $b$ like we did above.

QUESTION Write the code to solve for $x$ (i.e., ($a,b,c$)) using numpy.

QUESTION Given the value of your x matrix derived in the previous question, what are the values for $a$, $b$, and $c$?

Assuming the above is correct, the following code will print your 2nd order polynomial and plot the original points:

QUESTION The following program is intended to take four points as inputs ($p1, p2, p3, p4 \in R^2$) and calculate the coefficients $a$, $b$, $c$, and $d$ so that the graph of $f(x) = ax^3 + bx^2 + cx + d$ passes smoothly through the points. Test the function with the following points (1,2), (-1,6), (2,3), (3,2) as inputs and print the values for $a$, $b$, $c$, and $d$.

QUESTION Modify the above fitpoly3 function to also generate a figure of the input points and the resulting polynomial in range x=(-3,3).

QUESTION Give any four $R^2$ input points to fitPoly3, is there always a unique solution? Explain your answer.

Put your answer to the above question here.


Congratulations, we're done!

Course Resources:


Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.