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# 3.4: Basic Complex and Matrix Operations

Created by: CK-12

## Complex numbers

m-file environments have excellent support for complex numbers. The imaginary unit is denoted by

i


or

(as preferred in Electrical Engineering)

j


.

To create complex variables $z_1 = 7 + j$ and $z_2 = 2e^{j\pi}$ simply enter

z1 = 7 + j


and

z2 = 2*exp(j*pi)


Table 2 gives an overview of the basic functions for manipulating complex numbers, where $z$ is a complex number.

Manipulating complex numbers.
m-file
$Re(z)$
real(z)

$Im(z)$
imag(z)

$mag(z)$
abs(z)

$\angle(z)$
angle(z)

$z^*$
conj(z)


## Operations on Matrices

In addition to scalars, m-file environments can operate on matrices. Some common matrix operations are shown in Table 3; in this table,

M


and

N


are matrices.

Common matrix operations.
Operation m-file
$M N$
M*N

$M^{-1}$
inv(M)

$M^T$
M'

$det(M)$
det(M)


Some useful facts:

• The functions
length


and

size


are used to find the dimensions of vectors and matrices, respectively.

• Operations can also be performed on each element of a vector or matrix by proceeding the operator by ".", e.g
.*


,

.^


and

./


.

Example 4

Let $A = \begin{pmatrix}1 & 1\\ 1 & 1\end{pmatrix}$. Then

A^2


will return $AA = \begin{pmatrix}2 & 2\\ 2 & 2\end{pmatrix}$, while

A.^2


will return $\begin{pmatrix}1^2 & 1^2\\ 1^2 & 1^2\end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix}1 & 1\\ 1 & 1\end{pmatrix}$.

Example 5

Given a vector

x


,

compute a vector

y


having elements $y (n) = \tfrac{1}{sin(x(n))}$. This can be easily be done with the command

y=1./sin(x)


Note that using

/


in place of

./


would result in the (common) error "Matrix dimensions must agree".

Feb 23, 2012

Sep 15, 2014