
# 3: Determinants


• 3.1: Basic Techniques
Let A be an n×n matrix. That is, let A be a square matrix. The determinant of A, denoted by det(A) is a very important number which we will explore throughout this section.
• 3.2: Properties of Determinants
There are many important properties of determinants. Since many of these properties involve the row operations discussed in Chapter 1, we recall that definition now. We will now consider the effect of row operations on the determinant of a matrix. In future sections, we will see that using the following properties can greatly assist in finding determinants. This section will use the theorems as motivation to provide various examples of the usefulness of the properties.
• 3.3: Finding Determinants using Row Operations
In this section, we look at two examples where row operations are used to find the determinant of a large matrix.
• 3.4: Applications of the Determinant
The determinant of a matrix also provides a way to find the inverse of a matrix.
• 3.E: Exercises