1. Write minors and cofactors of the elements of the following determinants:
(i)
For a determinant the minor of element is the determinant left after deleting its row and column; for deleting a row & column leaves a number.
Elements and their minors:
-
. Cofactor
-
. Cofactor
-
. Cofactor
-
. Cofactor
(You can check: expansion along first row gives , and direct determinant )
(ii)
Minors (each entry):
(So cofactors matrix is )
2. Write minors and cofactors for the following determinants:
(i)
We give minors and cofactors
Because is diagonal, minors are determinants of the submatrices:
Row 1:
Row 2:
Row 3:
(So adj = transpose of cofactor matrix = identity again.)
(ii)
Compute minors (each is a determinant) and cofactors:
Row 1:
Row 2:
Row 3:
-
(note sign: , so
-
-
(You can verify determinant by expansion:
Direct check yields same.)
3. Using cofactors of elements of the second row, evaluate
We will expand along the second row:
Compute the cofactors (minors first):
-
For :
-
For :
-
For :
Now expansion:
(You may check by any other expansion; result is .)
4. Using cofactors of elements of the third column, evaluate
We expand along third column:
where
Compute minors and cofactors:
-
-
)
So -
So
Now expand:
Simplify term-by-term:
Group like terms:
We can rewrite symmetric grouping if desired. But we can also notice a factorization — rearrange as
Thus
(That is the simplest closed form. You may also write — indeed expanding that gives the same value. So and equals zero exactly when .)
5. If is the determinant and are cofactors of , then which of the following equals ?
Options:
-
(A)
-
(B)
-
(C)
-
(D)
Solution / reasoning.
Standard properties of cofactors / expansions:
-
Determinant expansion along the first row gives
-
Expansion along the first column gives
Option (D) exactly matches the expansion along the first column, so it equals .
Options (A), (B), (C) are mixed-index combinations that do not in general equal (they give either other identities or zero). For example, the sum of elements of one row multiplied by cofactors of a different row equals .
Therefore the correct choice is
