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In linear algebra, Cramer's rule is an explicit formula for the solution of a system of linear equations with as many equations as unknowns, valid whenever the system has a unique solution. It expresses the solution in terms of the determinants of the (square) coefficient matrix and of matrices obtained from it by replacing one column by the ...
In general, a system with fewer equations than unknowns has infinitely many solutions, but it may have no solution. Such a system is known as an underdetermined system. In general, a system with the same number of equations and unknowns has a single unique solution. In general, a system with more equations than unknowns has no solution.
Cramer's rule is a closed-form expression, in terms of determinants, of the solution of a system of n linear equations in n unknowns. Cramer's rule is useful for reasoning about the solution, but, except for n = 2 or 3 , it is rarely used for computing a solution, since Gaussian elimination is a faster algorithm.
There are two cases, depending on the number of linearly dependent equations: either there is just the trivial solution, or there is the trivial solution plus an infinite set of other solutions. Consider the system of linear equations: L i = 0 for 1 ≤ i ≤ M , and variables X 1 , X 2 , ..., X N , where each L i is a weighted sum of the X i s.
The system + =, + = has exactly one solution: x = 1, y = 2 The nonlinear system + =, + = has the two solutions (x, y) = (1, 0) and (x, y) = (0, 1), while + + =, + + =, + + = has an infinite number of solutions because the third equation is the first equation plus twice the second one and hence contains no independent information; thus any value of z can be chosen and values of x and y can be ...
For a system of linear equations, the number of equations in an indeterminate system could be the same as the number of unknowns, less than the number of unknowns (an underdetermined system), or greater than the number of unknowns (an overdetermined system). Conversely, any of those three cases may or may not be indeterminate.
However, if one searches for real solutions, there are two solutions, √ 2 and – √ 2; in other words, the solution set is {√ 2, − √ 2}. When an equation contains several unknowns, and when one has several equations with more unknowns than equations, the solution set is often infinite. In this case, the solutions cannot be listed.
If, on the other hand, the ranks of these two matrices are equal, the system must have at least one solution; since in an underdetermined system this rank is necessarily less than the number of unknowns, there are indeed an infinitude of solutions, with the general solution having k free parameters where k is the difference between the number ...