Reduced row echelon form: Sage example Draft

Sage cell illustrating creating a coefficient matrix of a system of three equations in three variables, augmenting with a vector of constants, and bringing the matrix to reduced row-echelon form in order to find the (unique) solution.

When does a linear system have a unique solution?

A 3x3 system having a unique solution is solved by putting the augmented matrix in reduced row echelon form. A picture of three intersecting planes provides geometric intuition.

Solution Sets

Sample problems to help understand when a linear system has 0, 1, or infinitely many solutions.

Types of Solution Sets - A First Course in Linear Algebra

We will now be more careful about analyzing the reduced row-echelon form derived from the augmented matrix of a system of linear equations. In particular, we will see how to systematically handle the situation when we have infinitely many solutions to a system, and we will prove that every system of linear equations has either zero, one or infinitely many solutions. With these tools, we will be able to routinely solve any linear system.