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The goal is to arrive at a matrix of the following form.

To do this, you use row multiplications, row additions, or row switching, as shown in the
following.

Put the equation in matrix form.

Eliminate the x‐coefficient below row 1.

Eliminate the y‐coefficient below row 5.


Reinserting the variables, this system is now

Equation (9) now can be solved for z. That result is substituted into equation (8), which
is then solved for y. The values for z and y then are substituted into equation (7), which
then is solved for x.

The check is left to you. The solution is x = 2, y = 1, z = 3.

Example 2

Solve the following system of equations, using matrices.

Put the equations in matrix form.


Eliminate the x‐coefficient below row 1.

Eliminate the y‐coefficient below row 5.

Reinserting the variables, the system is now:

Equation (9) can be solved for z.

Substitute into equation (8) and solve for y.


Substitute into equation (7) and solve for x.

The check of the solution is left to you. The solution is , , .

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Example 1:

Find the solution to the following system of equations


Solution:

The first step is to express the above system of equations as an augmented matrix.

Next we label the rows:

Now we start actually reducing the matrix to row echelon form. First we change the leading
coefficient of the first row to 1.

We achieve this by multiplying R1 by -1⁄3:

Next we change the coefficient in the second row that lies below the leading coefficient in first row.
This is achieved by multiplying the R2 by -1⁄5 and then adding the result to R1.

Adding the result to R'1:

So now our new matrix looks like this:


At this point, we re-introduce the variables into row 2 since we'll now have a one variable equation:

We can solve for y from the equation above:

Now that we have y, we can use back substitution to solve for x by substituting for y in the two
variable equation formed from R'1:

Therefore the solution to the system of equations is {x,y} = {2,-2}

Example 2:

Solve for x, y and z in the system of equations below

Solution:

The first step is to turn three variable system of equations into a 3x4 Augmented matrix.
Next we label the rows of the matrix:

Since in the above augmented matrix we can't find any rows with one as the leading coefficient, we
don't need to perform a row switching operation. However, we do need to modify row 1 such that
its leading coefficient is 1.

We can achieve this by multiplying row 1 by 1⁄3:

Next we need to change all the entries below the leading coefficient of the first row to zeros.

For the second row, we can achieve this by first multiplying through by-1⁄3 and then adding the
result to row 1.

Adding the result to row 1:

We then move on to row 3; here we multiply the row by -1⁄5 and then add the result to row 1 in
order to zero out the first element.
Adding the result to row 1:

We need the leading element in the second row to also be one. We obtain this result by multiplying
the second row by -3⁄2:

Next we zero out the element in row three beneath the leading coefficient in row two. To achieve
this, we multiply the third row by5⁄4

Adding the result to row 2:

Finally we multiply row 3 by -12 in order to have the leading element of the third row as one:
From the above matrix, we solve for the variables starting with z in the last row

Next we solve for y by substituting for z in the equation formed by the second row:

Finally we solve for x by substituting the values of y and z in the equation formed by the first row:

Therefore, the solution to the system of equations is {x,y,z} = {1,-2,1}

……………………….
Example 1
Solve the following system of equations

Step 1

In order to keep track of what equation we're talking about, the first step should always be labeling
the equations in the system.
Step 2

The next step is to inspect the equations to see how we can manipulate them to get rid of one of
the variables. This example is fairly simple, in order to get rid of variable y, we don't need to
multiply any of the equations by any constant, we could simply add the two equations and
variable y will simply disappear. This is because in both equations the coefficient of y in equation(1)
is the opposite of that in equation(2) i.e. 1 and -1 so when we add the two equations y should
cancel out.

Step 3

The above is a one variable equation in x, and we can easily solve for x by dividing through by 5

Step 4

Now that we have a solution for x, we can substitute for x in equation(1) to get a one variable
equation which we can use to solve for y.

substituting for x
Hence we have a solution for the system of equations as x = 5 and y = -1.

Example 2
Solve the following system of equations

Step 1

First step is to label the equations so we know which equation we're referring to.

Step 2

Next we inspect the system of equations to see how we can effectively eliminate one of the
variables.

From inspecting the system, we can observe that we can multiply equation (1) by -3 such that when
we add the two equations, we can eliminate x.

which results in

Step 3

Next we proceed to add the new equation to equation (2)


Which simplifies into

Step 4

The value of y has been obtained as -1. We proceed to use this value to solve for x by
substituting y into any of the above equations. Let's substitute y in the original equation (1)

The solution to the system of equation is {x,y} = {-1,-1}.

Example 3
Find the values of x and y in the system of equations given below

Step 1

When you're given a system of equations in a disorganized manner as above, it's always better to
start off by rearranging the equations such that the variables match up. This will make it easier to
work with the equations. Then you can proceed to label the equations.

Step 2
From inspecting the above system, it's not so obvious which constant to multiply by either equation
(1) or (2) in order to eliminate one of the variables. When such a situation occurs, you pick one
variable and decide that you want to eliminate that, then you pick one equation and multiply it by a
fraction whose numerator is the negative of the coefficient variable we're eliminating in the other
equation, and the denominator is the coeffecient of the variable for the equation we're multiplying.

For this example, let's eliminate variable x and work with equation (2) first:

which simplifies as

Step 3

Adding the above to equation (2) results in the following


Step 4

Now that we have a value for y, we can substitute and solve for x as follows;

Solution to the system of equations is {x,y} = {148⁄95,-43⁄19}

Solving Three Variable Systems of Equations by Elimination Method


Solving three variable systems of equations is not much different from solving those with two
variables. The basic concept remains the same only that in this case we take it a little further to
account for the third variable.

Similar to when we were solving for two variables, when it comes to three variables, we start off by
manipulating two of the three equations such that when they are added to the other equation, one
of the variables disappears completely. We then focus on those new two variable equations and also
manipulate them such that we remain with a one variable equation.

Given the system of equations below

We can solve for the variables x, y and z as follows:

First we pick equation (1) and use it to eliminate the variable x from the other equations.
We can achieve this in equation (2) by multiplying the equation by a constant such that when we
add equation(2) to equation (1), the x variable disappears.

Multiplying the above by a constant a⁄d

Adding the above to equation (1):

results in:

The above is the new equation (2).

We also eliminate the x variable from equation (3) in a similar manner:

multiplying through by a constant

Adding the above to equation (1)


which results in

The above is the new equation (3)

So now we have two two-variable equations, we can solve these two-variable equations using as we
learned in the section on two-variable systems of equations above.

Lets have an example to see how the above algorithm works

Example 4
Solve the following system of equations

Step 1

We start off by labeling our equations to make it easier to refer to them

Step 2

Next, we pick equation (2) variable y, we inspect this equation together with equation (1) to find a
way of eliminating this equation.
Step 3

From inspection, you can see that simply added equation (1) to equation (2) you would effectively
eliminate the variable y from equation (2)

results in

The above is the new equation (2)

Step 4

We do the same for equation (3)

But observe that in this case we're lucky that equation (3) is already a two variable equation
in z and x.

Step 5

So we can proceed to handle equations (2) and (3) as a two variable system of equations

From inspecting the above system, we can choose any variable to eliminate since they'll all be
relatively simple, but lets go with x.

Step 6
We can eliminate x by multiplying equation (3) by -1 and then adding the result to equation 2 as
follows:

which gives

which results in

Step 7

The above is a relatively simple one variable equation from which we can solve for x by dividing
both sides by 3:

Using back substitution, we can then solve for x and y, starting with x. To find x, we substitute the
value of zinto equation (2)

Step 8
Now that we have values for x and z, we can find y by substituting these value into equation (1)

The solution to the system of equations is {x, y, z} = {1, 2, 3}

Example 5
Find x, y and z from the system of equations below

Step 1

As always, we begin by labeling the equations so that they're easier to reference.

Step 2

Next, we consider equations (1) and (2) such that we eliminate one of the variables; in this case x

Step 3

We can see that if we were to multiply equation (2) by -1⁄3, and then add the result to equation (1),
we can obtain a new equation (2) which will be a two variable equation in y and z.
which results in:

Step 4

Adding the above result to equation (1)

results in:

The above becomes our new equation (2).

Step 5

We then carry out the same procedure for equation (3):

From inspecting the above system, we can see that if we multiply equation (3) by -1⁄6

results in:
Step 6

Then we add the above to equation (1)

which results in:

The above result becomes our new equation (3)

Step 7

Now we have obtained a new system of equations which only has two variables:

Step 8

We can eliminate y from the above system by multiplying equation (3) by -2⁄3 and then adding the
result to equation (2). The resulting equation will be a one variable equation in z and we can solve
for z from this.

results in:
Step 9

Adding the above to equation (2):

which results in;

We can solve for z from the above:

Step 10

Using back substitution, we can now solve for y then for x.

First we find y by substituting the value of z into equation (2):

Step 11
Having obtained y, we can find x by substituting y and z in equation (1):

The solution to the system of equations is: {x, y, z} = {1⁄14, 4⁄21, 8⁄7}

……………………………………………

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