What does a symmetric matrix transformation do, geometrically? Need some visual

Reed Eaton

Reed Eaton

Answered question

2022-06-22

What does a symmetric matrix transformation do, geometrically?Need some visual intuition behind what exactly a symmetric matrix transformation does. In a 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 vector space, what are they generally?

Answer & Explanation

Cristian Hamilton

Cristian Hamilton

Beginner2022-06-23Added 23 answers

A real symmetric matrix is always orthogonally diagonalizable, meaning that there's a basis for R n consisting of mutually perpendicular eigenvectors of the matrix. Thus you can understand multiplying a column vector by a symmetric matrix geometrically as:
- Express the input vector in a different rectangular coordinate system that depends on the matrix.
- Multiply each coordinate by some constant that depends on which axis in the new coordinate system it corresponds to -- that is, stretch, shrink or flip each axis independently of each other.
- Express the result back in the original coordinate system.

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