TONY DAVIESCOLUMN

24 Spectroscopy Europe 2000 Spectroscopy Europe 12/2 (2000)

When I began these columns, many
years ago, in Spectroscopy World
1
I made
the promise that Matrix Algebra would
be kept to a minimum. My intention
was (and still is) to make sure that the
column was accessible to all spectro-
scopists and not just those who were
mathematically adapt. However, I have
decided that it is time to move forward
(we may not have reached the
Mil l ennium yet but at l east the
Millennium bug is behind us) and so
together we are going to explore the
magical world of matrix algebra!
One of the facts that help me make
this decision is that matrix algebra pro-
grams are becoming more accessible
and they are being much more widely
used but I should make it clear that I
am learning with you (or perhaps one
column ahead of you). Until this year I
may have been using matrix algebra
inside commercial programs but they
were transparent to me and beyond my
control. I did not have a matrix algebra
program. In order to write these
columns I obviously needed access to
one and Math Works Inc. have very
kindly given me a copy of MATLAB
for this purpose.
Most of the chemometric books on
my bookshelf have a chapter or an
appendix on matrix algebra and they
are all very similar. They are mainly
composed of a list of matrix algebra
operations with very little insight as to
when or why you should want to use
them. I would like to try a different
approach. In this first article I will
demonstrate some very basic properties
of a matrix and how they can be
manipulated. In subsequent articles I
will be assisted by my friend and tutor,
Professor Tom Fearn, and we will
attempt to solve a real spectroscopic
problem and explain how matrix alge-
bra has been utilised.
I was so impressed by the introduc-
tion to MATLAB
2
that I realised that I
was not going to be able to improve on
it; so I decided to borrow it!
Figure 1 is a fragment of an etching
by Albrecht Drer (14711528) and it
shows a matrix. This matrix has some
rather special properties and we can
demonstrate them rather conveniently
as a MATLAB matrix.
There are many ways of entering
data into MATLAB. When there is not
much data it is quite simple to type it.
The command:
A = [16 3 2 13; 5 10 11 8;
9 6 7 12; 4 15 14 1]
will produce:
A =
16 3 2 13
5 10 11 8
9 6 7 12
4 15 14 1
This is Drers matrix and from now
on we can refer to it as A perhaps
we should have named it after Drer
and called it D. Well we can do that
by saying:
D = A
Why should we be interested in D?
Because it is known as a magic square.
What is magical? Well, whichever way
you go every line of four numbers adds
up to the same number. If we com-
mand;
sum(D)
MATLAB responds with:
ans =
34 34 34 34
it has just added up each column and
you might like to check that it has got
the correct answer.
I have just used a matrix algebra
term but you will not have noticed it
because you know what the word
col umn means. It has the same
meaning in matrix algebra; similarly
row has the expected meaning but
you might not guess that the individual
numbers (or rather the place where
they are stored) are know as ele-
ments. If we are being very correct
the columns and rows are called col-
umn vectors and row vectors. A vec-
tor is defined as a row or column of
numbers.
It will often happen that we need to
change our mind about which are
columns and which are rows but in
matrix algebra there is a very simple
way of reorganising the data. It is
known as transposition and is referred
to as D
T
. The command;
D
produces:
ans =
16 5 9 4
3 10 6 15
2 11 7 14
13 8 12 1
so the rows are now columns and the
columns are rows. MATLAB is orient-
ed to operating on columns so that
usually if we want to do an operation
on the rows we first transpose and do it
on the columns. Therefore the com-
mand;
sum (D)
produces
ans =
34 34 34 34
which is the sums of the rows.
All matrices contain diagonals. The
diagonal from top left to bottom right
is mathematically important and is
called the main diagonal while the
one from top right to bottom left is
known as the antidiagonal.
We get the elements of the main
diagonal very easily because there is a
command for it. Entering
diag(D)
produces
ans =
16
10
7
1
The magical world of matrix algebra
Tony Davies
Norwich Near Infrared Consultancy, 75 Intwood Road, Cringleford, Norwich, NR4 6AA, UK.
Figure 1. Detail from Melancholia
I by Albrect Drer. Reproduced
from Reference 2.
and
sum(diag(D))
produces
ans =
34
so the main diagonal is magic. There is
no similar command to get the ele-
ments of the antidiagonal but there is a
command fliplr which produces a
left to right mirror image of a matrix.
Thus;
fliplr(D)
produces
ans =
13 2 3 16
8 11 10 5
12 7 6 9
1 14 15 4
diag(fliplr(D))
produces
ans =
13
11
6
4
and
sum(diag(fliplr(D)))
produces
ans =
34
so we have demonstrated that Drers
square is indeed magic. One little thing
you might not know; Drer had a
good reason for writing the magic
square the way he did rather than any
of the others that we have produced.
He wanted the date he made the
engraving to appear in the magic
square. The year was 1514.
We are going to need to refer to
individual elements in a matrix and this
is done through subscripts. It is cus-
tomary to call the rows i and the
columns j and this is written D(i, j ).
If i = 4 and j = 3 we are referring to
the element in the fourth row of the
third column which for Drers matrix
D is 14. There is also a way of refer-
encing a matrix by the use of a single
subscript (normally called k) in which
we imagine all the columns standing on
top of each other beginning from the
left. So instead of D(i, j) or D(4, 3) we
can say D(12) and it will return the
value 14.
There is still plenty of magic left in
Drers square. Have a look at the four
figures in the top left-hand corner. We
can put them in a new matrix with:
E = D(1:2, 1:2)
This says take the val ues from
matrix D which are are in rows one
and two, columns one and two and put
them in a new matrix, E.
The result is:
E =
16 3
5 10
Now we can sum them with the
commands
sum(E)
ans =
21 13
sum(E)
ans =
21
13
sum(sum(E))
You can guess the answer!
There are plenty more sum to 34s
to be found; you may enjoy searching
for them.
So now, even if you knew nothing
about matrix algebra before, you know
what matrices are and some of the
things that can be done with them. So
far you will not be able to appreciate
just how useful matrix algebra is for
solving real problems rather than just
manipulating numbers. By the way, we
have been looking at integers but this
has just been to keep it simple. We
would normally expect to be working
with floating point numbers. There are
two facets of matrix algebra that make
it so important. The first is that it
enables us to write solutions to prob-
lems that would be extremely complex
without it. An exampl e being
Mahalanobis distance.
3
(It is a long
time since we looked at Mahalanobis
distance perhaps with our new knowl-
edge we can re-visit it!) The other
point is that programs such as MAT-
LAB make matrix algebra into a very
efficient mathematical tool so that
computer programs can either be faster
or (more likely) do much more com-
plex calculations. I hope you will be
persuaded next time when we begin to
look at our problem.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Tom Fearn for
assisting with and checking this article.
References
1. A.M.C. Davies, Spectrosc. World
1(1), 30 (1989).
2. Anon., Getting Stated with MAT-
LAB. The Math Works, Inc.,
Natick, MA, USA (1998).
3. S.M. Buco, Spectrosc. World 3(3),
28 (1991).
26 Spectroscopy Europe 12/2 (2000)
TONY DAVIESCOLUMN