1

VECTORS AND
MATRICES
Chapter 2

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 2

MATRICES
10 15.7 23.1  Experimental data is recorded in tabular
20 18.2 25.8 format as shown to the left
30 19.2 26.9  There are rows and columns of data
 This gives a matrix
40 19.8 28.3

 Matrices contain values of the same type

 Each value in the matrix is stored in an element
 The size of a matrix is noted by the number of rows and the
number of columns
 For m rows and n columns, we say ‘m by n’ or write m x n
 Number of rows always goes first!
 Matrix above: 4 rows, 3 columns 4 x 3 matrix
 Matrices are also known as arrays
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 3

VECTORS AND SCALARS

 A set of data with only one row or one column is a
vector
 Vectors are simply matrices that have one of the
dimensions equal to 1
 A row of data is known as a row vector
10 23 4 16 25
 1 x 5 matrix shown above. Notice the number of rows = 1
 A column of data is known as a column vector
8
 3 x 1 matrix shown here. Notice the number of
5 columns =1
1
 A 1 x 1 matrix is just a single value 21
 Known as a scalar

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 4

CREATING ROW
VECTORS
 Two methods: direct or colon operator
 Direct: Values contained in square brackets, separated
by commas or spaces

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 CREATING ROW
5

VECTORS
Colon operator
 Creates values in the form
first:step:last
 Example: To get a vector
that starts at 5, ends at 20,
in steps of 5, use: 5:5:20
 If a step size is not
specified, a step size of 1
will be used
 To decrement numbers use
a step size of -1

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 6

LINSPACE
• linspace is used when evenly spaced data points
are needed
• Usage: linspace(x,y,n)
• Gives n data points in the range of x to y
• If n is omitted 100 data points are created
• linspace(x,y)

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 7

LOGSPACE
• logspace creates a logarithmically spaced vector
• Usage: logspace(x,y,n)
• Gives n data points in the range of 10𝑥𝑥 to 10𝑦𝑦
• If n is omitted 50 data points generated

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 8

CONCATENATION
• Concatenation – joining vectors together or adding
additional elements to an existing vector
• List vectors/numbers you want to combine inside
square brackets

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 9

REFERRING TO ELEMENTS
• Values in a matrix/vector are stored as elements
• Vector elements are numbered sequentially from
left to right or top to bottom
• The value of an element’s row or column number is
the index
• Use the index to refer to elements – this allows
individual matrix/vector values to be used
1 7
1 2 3 4 5 2 9
index
10 12 14 16 18 numbers 3 13

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 10

REFERRING TO ELEMENTS
• To use the index, type the
vector name followed by
the index in parenthesis
• To reference more than one
element use a index vector
• Index vector lists the
element numbers in
brackets
• Colon operator can be
used

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 11

MODIFYING
ELEMENTS
 Once vector has been
created, individual
values can be
changed using index
 Need to add data to
your vector?
 Extend the vector to
include new data
 Notice gaps in data
are filled in with zeros
 This method is
inefficient!

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 12

COLUMN VECTORS
• m x 1 vector is a column
vector
• Two methods to create:
Direct and colon
operator with transpose
• Direct Method: values are
separated by semi-colons
in square brackets
• Semi-colons indicate
when to move to next
row

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 COLUMN VECTORS 13

• Colon operator is used to

create row vectors
• For column vectors,
simply create a row
vector and then
transpose it
• To transpose use
transpose function or
the apostrophe ‘

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 14

COLUMN VECTORS
Index used to Index used to
refer to elements change elements

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 15

CREATING MATRICES
• Will have m rows and n
columns – m x n matrix
• Values within rows
separated by spaces or
commas
• Direct method or
colon method can be
used to form rows
• Must have same
number of elements in
each row!!!
• Semi-colons separate
the rows

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 16

CREATING MATRICES
• Many built-in functions to create matrices
• Random number generators:
• rand(n)-generates square nxn matrix of random real
numbers in the open interval (0,1)
• rand(n,m)-generates nxm matrix of random real numbers
in the open interval (0,1)
• randi([range],n,m) -generates nxm matrix of random
integers in the range specified by the closed interval
• Zeros and ones:
• zeros(n) -generates square nxn matrix of zeros
• zeros(n,m) -generates nxm matrix of zeros
• ones(n) -generates nxn matrix of ones
• ones(n,m) -generates nxm matrix of ones
• Why might we want this? We’ll cover it later on

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 17

MATRIX ELEMENTS
• Subscripted indexing – referring to an element of the matrix
• Row first, column second – ALWAYS!

1 2 3
1 9 8 29
2 4 17 14
3 6 3 21

Index numbers

mat(1,1)=9 mat(2,1)=4 mat(3,1)=6

mat(1,2)=8 mat(2,2)=17 mat(3,2)=3
mat(1,3)=29 mat(2,3)=14 mat(3,3)=21
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 18

MATRIX ELEMENTS
• Use a colon (:) to refer to an entire row or column
• : indicates all rows or columns
• mat(m,:) – refers to the entire mth row
• : indicates all columns – all columns of the mth row
• mat(:,n) – refers to entire nth column
• : indicates all rows – all rows of the nth column

1 2 3
1 9 8 29
2 4 17 14
3 6 3 21

mat(1,:)=9 8 29 mat(:,1)=9 mat(:,2)=8 mat(:,3)=29

mat(2,:)=4 17 14 4 17 14
mat(3,:)=6 3 21 6 3 21

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 MATRIX INDEXING 19

• Modify subsets of matrix using assignment statements

12 0 0
B = 102 108 0
0 30 120

12 0 10
′
B : , 3 = 10 20 30 gives B = 102 108 20
0 30 30

5 10 15
B 1, : = 5: 5: 15 gives B = 102 108 20
0 30 30

• end will give the last row or column of a matrix

B(end,2)=30 B(1,end)=15
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 20

MATRIX DIMENSIONS
• Functions to determine the dimensions of a vector or matrix:
• length
• Vector: returns the # of elements
• Matrix: returns the larger dimension (row or column)
• Usage: length(name)
• numel
• Returns number of elements in vector or matrix
• Usage: numel(name)
• size
• Returns the number of rows and columns for a vector or
matrix
• Returns two values – # of rows, # of columns
• Must assign variables to both these values
• Usage: [r c] = size(mat)

r= # of rows c=# of columns

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 21

MATRIX DIMENSIONS
• Examples:
7 5 3
A=
9 5 1
length(A)=3
numel(A)=6
[r c]=size(A) r=2 c=3

C= 6 4 3 8 7
length(C)=5
numel(C)=5
[r c]=size(A) r=1 c=5
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 22

CHANGING DIMENSIONS
• Functions to change matrix dimensions
• reshape – converts a matrix to a new matrix with
different dimensions but the same number of elements
1 5 3 4
𝐴𝐴 = 8 5 7 18
6 12 23 14
• A has 12 elements

• reshape can be used to put these elements into

matrices with the following dimensions: 1x12, 12x1, 4x3,
2x6, 6x2
• Works through the matrix columnwise
• reshape(A,1,12) gives a 1x12 matrix

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 23

CHANGING DIMENSIONS

• Other functions:
• rot90 rotates a matrix 90 degrees counter-
clockwise
• fliplr flips columns of a matrix from left to
right (about a vertical line)
• flipud flips rows of a matrix up to down
(about a horizontal line)
• repmat replicates a matrix; creates m x n
copies of the matrix
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 24

ARRAYS AS FUNCTION
ARGUMENTS
• Let’s say we have a 1x10 array of data and we need to
find the square root of each element in the array
• Easy to do in MATLAB
• Use the array as a function argument
• Operation will be performed on every element
array=randi([1,100],1,10)
array =
82 91 13 92 64 10 28 55 96 97

sqrt(array)= 9.0554 9.5394 3.6056 9.5917 8.0000

3.1623 5.2915 7.4162 9.7980 9.8489

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 MIN & MAX
25

max - finds the max min – finds the min

value in a vector or in a value in a vector or the
matrix column in matrix column
>> nums=[1 -3 5 8 -4]; >> nums=[1 -3 5 8 -4];
>> max(nums) >> min(nums)
ans = ans =
8 -4
>> A=[1 5 -9;3 -1 15] >> A=[1 5 -9;3 -1 15]
A = A =
1 5 -9 1 5 -9
3 -1 15 3 -1 15
>> max(A) >> min(A)
ans = ans =
3 5 15 1 -1 -9
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 26

MIN & MAX

• To find max/min of entire matrix use function twice
>> B=randi([-10,10],2,4)
B =
-7 10 6 -2
10 0 -8 9
>> m=max(B)
m = Using max results in a vector
10 10 6 9
>> maxB=max(m) Using max again results in a scalar
maxB = that is the max value of the matrix
10
>> maxB2=max(max(B)) More efficient way to do this
maxB2 =
10
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 SUM & CUMSUM 27

cumsum (cumulative
sum – returns the sum of sum) – gives the running
all elements in a vector sum of vector elements
or matrix column or matrix column
C = D =
2 4 6 8 3 6 9 12
>> sum(C) >> cumsum(D)
ans = ans =
20 3 9 18 30
matC = matD =
1 4 7 10 6 -10 4
3 5 7 6 10 7 5
>> sum(matC) 3 9 5
ans = >> cumsum(matD)
4 9 14 16 ans =
>> sum(sum(matC)) 6 -10 4
4+5
ans = 16 -3 9
43 19 6 14 9+5
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 PROD & CUMPROD 28

prod - finds product of cumprod – finds the running

elements in a vector or matrix product of elements in a
column vector of matrix column
>> A=2:4:14 >> A=2:4:14
A= A=

2 6 10 14 2 6 10 14

>> prod(A)
>> cumprod(A) 12*10
ans =
ans =
2 12 120 1680
1680 2*6*10*14
>> matA=randi([1,10],3,4)
>> matA=randi([1,10],3,4) matA =
matA = 4 8 1 7
4 8 1 7 7 1 1 4
7 1 1 4 2 3 9 10
2 3 9 10 >> cumprod(matA)
ans =
>> prod(matA)
ans =
4 8 1 7 7*4
28 8 1 28
56 24 9 280 7*4*10 28*10
56 24 9 280
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 29

>> matnums=randi([-5,5],2,5)
matnums =
-3 -3 2 5 -4
SCALAR 3 0 4 1 -4
OPERATIONS >> matnums*-1
Need to ans =
perform an 3 3 -2 -5 4
operation on -3 0 -4 -1 4
every element >> matnums+10
in a matrix? ans =
Easy to do 7 7 12 15 6
using math 13 10 14 11 6
operators
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 30

>> A=randi([1,5],2,2)
A =
2 2
5 5
>> B=randi([1,5],2,2)

MATRIX MATH
B =
2 2
o Matrix Addition & 5 1
Subtraction >> A+B
o Performed element ans =
by element
4 4
o Must have the same
dimensions in each 10 6
matrix >> B-A
ans =
0 0
0 -4

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 31

MATRIX MATH
• Use the following operators for element by element
matrix operations
• Multiplication - .*
• Division - ./
• Exponentiation - .^
• Notice the use of the dot (.) before the regular
operator
• Indicates element by element operations instead of
standard matrix multiplication
a = 3 6 5 b = 3 5 4
>> a.*b
ans =
9 30 20

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 32

MATRIX MATH
• Matrix multiplication is not the same as element by element
multiplication
• * is the matrix multiplication operator
• Let A have dimensions m x n and B have dimensions n x q
• A*B=C
• C has dimensions m x q
• mxn*nxq=mxq

inner dimensions Resulting matrix has dimensions

must be equal of outer dimensions

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 33

MATRIX MULTIPLICATION
• Dot product of rows and columns used to multiply
matrices
• Example:
12 11
1 3 5 82 73
× 10 9 =
2 4 6 112 100
8 7

1*12+3*10+5*8 = 82

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 34

VECTOR OPERATIONS
• Dot product of vectors 𝐚𝐚 = 𝑎𝑎1 , 𝑎𝑎2 , 𝑎𝑎3 and 𝐛𝐛 = [𝑏𝑏1 , 𝑏𝑏2 , 𝑏𝑏3 ]
defined as 𝑎𝑎1 ∗ 𝑏𝑏1 + 𝑎𝑎2 ∗ 𝑏𝑏2 + 𝑎𝑎3 ∗ 𝑏𝑏3
• dot is built-in function for this
>> a=[1 2 3];
>> b=[4 5 6];
>> c=dot(a,b)
c =
32
• Uses: finding angle between two lines, finding projection
on a line, etc.
• dot works for vectors with more than 3 elements

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 35

VECTOR OPERATIONS
• Cross product is used extensively in engineering
• Most commonly used to find perpendicular components
• Finding moments
• Calculating the vector of a line perpendicular to a surface,
etc.
• cross is the built-in function
• Only works with 3-element vectors
• For 2-D vectors make the third component equal to zero
>> a=[1 2 3]; >> d=cross(a,b)
>> b=[4 5 6]; d =
-3 6 -3

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 36

VECTOR OPERATIONS
• Magnitude of vectors is commonly found by engineers
• Examples
• To calculate speed from a velocity vector, you find the
magnitude of the velocity vector
• If you have the vector for the line between two points, finding
the magnitude of the line vector gives the distance between
the points

• Defined as 𝒂𝒂𝟐𝟐𝟏𝟏 + 𝒂𝒂𝟐𝟐𝟐𝟐 + 𝒂𝒂𝟐𝟐𝟑𝟑 for a vector 𝐚𝐚 = 𝑎𝑎1 , 𝑎𝑎2 , 𝑎𝑎3

• norm is the built-in function
>> line=[2 4 7];
>> dist=norm(line)
dist =
8.3066

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 37

VECTOR OPERATIONS
• Matrix inverse
• Operator ^-1
• Useful for solving systems of equations
• Example: Solve the following system of equations for
𝑥𝑥1 , 𝑥𝑥2 , 𝑥𝑥3
𝑎𝑎11 𝑥𝑥1 + 𝑎𝑎12 𝑥𝑥2 + 𝑎𝑎13 𝑥𝑥3 = 𝑏𝑏1
𝑎𝑎21 𝑥𝑥1 + 𝑎𝑎22 𝑥𝑥2 + 𝑎𝑎23 𝑥𝑥3 = 𝑏𝑏2
𝑎𝑎31 𝑥𝑥1 + 𝑎𝑎32 𝑥𝑥2 + 𝑎𝑎33 𝑥𝑥3 = 𝑏𝑏3

𝑥𝑥1 𝑎𝑎11 𝑎𝑎12 𝑎𝑎13 −1 𝑏𝑏1

𝑥𝑥2 = 𝑎𝑎21 𝑎𝑎22 𝑎𝑎23 𝑏𝑏2
𝑥𝑥3 𝑎𝑎31 𝑎𝑎32 𝑎𝑎33 𝑏𝑏3

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 38

LOGICAL VECTORS
• Recall: a logical results in a 0 or 1
• 0 for FALSE
• 1 for TRUE
• Logicals can be used on vectors to find elements meeting
certain requirements
• Example: a vector containing speeds is given. We need to
find speeds greater than 55
>> speed=[37 65 45 58 23]
speed =
37 65 45 58 23
>> speed>55
ans=
0 indicates speed at that index is not > 55
0 1 0 1 0
1 indicates speed is >55
Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep
 39

LOGICAL VECTORS
• Want to pull out the actual values instead of getting 0s
and 1s?
• Use the logical vector from the logical test to index into
vector
speed=[37 65 45 58 23]
vals=speed>55
vals =
0 1 0 1 0 Logical vector
>> hispeed=speed(vals)
hispeed =
65 58

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 LOGICAL FUNCTIONS 40

• find – does logical test and returns indices

>> speed=[37 65 45 58 23];
>> hispeed=find(speed>55)
65 located in column 2
hispeed =
58 located in column 4
2 4
• any – logical test that returns a 1 (true) if ANY elements meet
the requirement specified
hispeed=any(speed>55)
hispeed =
1
• all – logical test that returns a 1 (true) only if ALL
elements meet specified requirement
hispeed=all(speed>55)
hispeed =
0

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep

 41

ISEQUAL
• Need to compare two arrays and get a true/false
answer?
• isequal - compares two arrays and returns a 0 or 1
• 0 – arrays not equal
• 1 – arrays are equal
>> accel1=[2.5 5.6 7.3 0.4];
>> accel2=[2.5 5.7 7.3 0.4];
>> isequal(accel1,accel2)
ans =
0 5.6 ≠ 5.7

Copyright © 2017 STEM Course Prep