Mathematical  Culture and Thought

Mathematical Culture and Thought

‎A ‎H‎istory of Matrices and Determinants Prior to the 20th Century

Document Type : Survey

Author
Department of Mathematics, Arak University, ‎Iran
Abstract
In this article, the history of matrix and determinants from the beginning to the beginning of the 20th century is studied. But in the 20th century, the theory of matrices has spread so much that writing a history about it will probably be very voluminous and a separate history should be written for each of the topics. The fact that the Gaussian elimination method has a history of more than 2000 years is one of the points we will address. We want to know by whom matrices were introduced and developed before the 20th century. We will also introduce the first person who used determinants and study his influence on the work of later mathematicians. Today, matrices are expanding, but determinants are not much considered because of the large amount of calculations they have, and the invention of digital computers did not cause us to return to Cramer's method, but at one time, determinants were much more interested than matrices.
Keywords
Subjects

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  • Receive Date 18 February 2023
  • Revise Date 24 September 2023
  • Accept Date 25 September 2023
  • Publish Date 22 July 2024