Cramer's rule

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 column vector of right-sides of
the equations. It is named after Gabriel Cramer, who published the rule for an arbitrary number of
unknowns in 1750,[1][2] although Colin Maclaurin also published special cases of the rule in
1748,[3] and possibly knew of it as early as 1729.[4][5][6]

Cramer's rule implemented in a naive way is computationally inefficient for systems of more
than two or three equations.[7] In the case of n equations in n unknowns, it requires computation
of n + 1 determinants, while Gaussian elimination produces the result with the same
computational complexity as the computation of a single determinant.[8][9] Cramer's rule can
also be numerically unstable even for 2×2 systems.[10] However, Cramer's rule can be
implemented with the same complexity as Gaussian elimination,[11][12] (consistently requires
twice as many arithmetic operations and has the same numerical stability when the same
permutation matrices are applied).

General case
Consider a system of n linear equations for n unknowns, represented in matrix multiplication
form as follows:
where the n × n matrix A has a nonzero determinant, and the vector is the
column vector of the variables. Then the theorem states that in this case the system has a
unique solution, whose individual values for the unknowns are given by:

where is the matrix formed by replacing the i-th column of A by the column vector b.

A more general version of Cramer's rule[13] considers the matrix equation

where the n × n matrix A has a nonzero determinant, and X, B are n × m matrices. Given
sequences and , let be
the k × k submatrix of X with rows in and columns in . Let
be the n × n matrix formed by replacing the column of A by the column of B, for
all . Then

In the case , this reduces to the normal Cramer's rule.

The rule holds for systems of equations with coefficients and unknowns in any field, not just in
the real numbers.
Proof
The proof for Cramer's rule uses the following properties of the determinants: linearity with
respect to any given column and the fact that the determinant is zero whenever two columns are
equal, which is implied by the property that the sign of the determinant flips if you switch two
columns.

Fix the index j of a column, and consider that the entries of the other columns have fixed values.
This makes the determinant a function of the entries of the jth column. Linearity with respect of
this column means that this function has the form

where the are coefficients that depend on the entries of A that are not in column j. So, one
has

(Laplace expansion provides a formula for computing the but their expression is not
important here.)

If the function is applied to any other column k of A, then the result is the determinant of the
matrix obtained from A by replacing column j by a copy of column k, so the resulting
determinant is 0 (the case of two equal columns).

Now consider a system of n linear equations in n unknowns , whose coefficient

matrix is A, with det(A) assumed to be nonzero:
If one combines these equations by taking C1,j times the first equation, plus C2,j times the
second, and so forth until Cn,j times the last, then for every k the resulting coefficient of xk
becomes

So, all coefficients become zero, except the coefficient of that becomes Similarly,
the constant coefficient becomes and the resulting equation is thus

which gives the value of as

As, by construction, the numerator is the determinant of the matrix obtained from A by replacing
column j by b, we get the expression of Cramer's rule as a necessary condition for a solution.

It remains to prove that these values for the unknowns form a solution. Let M be the n × n matrix
that has the coefficients of as jth row, for (this is the adjugate matrix for A).
Expressed in matrix terms, we have thus to prove that
is a solution; that is, that

For that, it suffices to prove that

where is the identity matrix.

The above properties of the functions show that one has MA = det(A)In, and therefore,

This completes the proof, since a left inverse of a square matrix is also a right-inverse (see
Invertible matrix theorem).

For other proofs, see below.

Finding inverse matrix
Let A be an n × n matrix with entries in a field F. Then

where adj(A) denotes the adjugate matrix, det(A) is the determinant, and I is the identity matrix.
If det(A) is nonzero, then the inverse matrix of A is

This gives a formula for the inverse of A, provided det(A) ≠ 0. In fact, this formula works
whenever F is a commutative ring, provided that det(A) is a unit. If det(A) is not a unit, then A is
not invertible over the ring (it may be invertible over a larger ring in which some non-unit
elements of F may be invertible).

Applications

Explicit formulas for small systems

Consider the linear system
which in matrix format is

Assume a1b2 − b1a2 is nonzero. Then, with the help of determinants, x and y can be found with
Cramer's rule as

The rules for 3 × 3 matrices are similar. Given

which in matrix format is

Then the values of x, y and z can be found as follows:

Differential geometry

Ricci calculus
Cramer's rule is used in the Ricci calculus in various calculations involving the Christoffel
symbols of the first and second kind.[14]
In particular, Cramer's rule can be used to prove that the divergence operator on a Riemannian
manifold is invariant with respect to change of coordinates. We give a direct proof, suppressing
the role of the Christoffel symbols. Let be a Riemannian manifold equipped with local

coordinates . Let be a vector field. We use the summation

convention throughout.

Theorem.
The divergence of ,

is invariant under change of coordinates.

 Proof

Let be a coordinate transformation with non-

singular Jacobian. Then the classical transformation laws imply that

where . Similarly, if , then

. Writing this transformation law in terms of matrices yields

, which implies .

Now one computes

In order to show that this equals , it is necessary and

sufficient to show that

which is equivalent to

Carrying out the differentiation on the left-hand side, we get:

where denotes the matrix obtained from by deleting the th row and th

column. But Cramer's Rule says that

is the th entry of the matrix . Thus

 completing the proof.

Computing derivatives implicitly

Consider the two equations and . When u and v are
independent variables, we can define and

An equation for can be found by applying Cramer's rule.

 Calculation of

First, calculate the first derivatives of F, G, x, and y:

Substituting dx, dy into dF and dG, we have:

Since u, v are both independent, the coefficients of du, dv must be zero. So we can write
out equations for the coefficients:

Now, by Cramer's rule, we see that:

 This is now a formula in terms of two Jacobians:

Similar formulas can be derived for

Integer programming
Cramer's rule can be used to prove that an integer programming problem whose constraint
matrix is totally unimodular and whose right-hand side is integer, has integer basic solutions.
This makes the integer program substantially easier to solve.
Ordinary differential equations
Cramer's rule is used to derive the general solution to an inhomogeneous linear differential
equation by the method of variation of parameters.
Geometric interpretation
 Geometric interpretation of Cramer's rule. The areas of the second
and third shaded parallelograms are the same and the second is
times the first. From this equality Cramer's rule follows.

Cramer's rule has a geometric interpretation that can be considered also a proof or simply giving
insight about its geometric nature. These geometric arguments work in general and not only in
the case of two equations with two unknowns presented here.

Given the system of equations

it can be considered as an equation between vectors

The area of the parallelogram determined by and is given by the determinant of

the system of equations:

In general, when there are more variables and equations, the determinant of n vectors of length
n will give the volume of the parallelepiped determined by those vectors in the n-th dimensional
Euclidean space.

Therefore, the area of the parallelogram determined by and has to be

times the area of the first one since one of the sides has been multiplied by this factor. Now, this
last parallelogram, by Cavalieri's principle, has the same area as the parallelogram determined by

and

Equating the areas of this last and the second parallelogram gives the equation

from which Cramer's rule follows.

Other proofs

A proof by abstract linear algebra

This is a restatement of the proof above in abstract language.

Consider the map where is the

matrix with substituted in the th column, as in Cramer's rule. Because of linearity of

determinant in every column, this map is linear. Observe that it sends the th column of to the
th basis vector (with 1 in the th place), because determinant of a
matrix with a repeated column is 0. So we have a linear map which agrees with the inverse of
on the column space; hence it agrees with on the span of the column space. Since is
invertible, the column vectors span all of , so our map really is the inverse of . Cramer's rule
follows.
A short proof
A short proof of Cramer's rule [15] can be given by noticing that is the determinant of the
matrix

On the other hand, assuming that our original matrix A is invertible, this matrix has columns
, where is the n-th column of the matrix A. Recall that the
matrix has columns , and therefore . Hence, by using that the
determinant of the product of two matrices is the product of the determinants, we have

The proof for other is similar.

Using Geometric Algebra
see here

Inconsistent and
indeterminate cases
A system of equations is said to be inconsistent when there are no solutions and it is called
indeterminate when there is more than one solution. For linear equations, an indeterminate
system will have infinitely many solutions (if it is over an infinite field), since the solutions can be
expressed in terms of one or more parameters that can take arbitrary values.

Cramer's rule applies to the case where the coefficient determinant is nonzero. In the 2×2 case, if
the coefficient determinant is zero, then the system is incompatible if the numerator
determinants are nonzero, or indeterminate if the numerator determinants are zero.

For 3×3 or higher systems, the only thing one can say when the coefficient determinant equals
zero is that if any of the numerator determinants are nonzero, then the system must be
inconsistent. However, having all determinants zero does not imply that the system is
indeterminate. A simple example where all determinants vanish (equal zero) but the system is
still incompatible is the 3×3 system x+y+z=1, x+y+z=2, x+y+z=3.

See also

Rouché–Capelli theorem
 Gaussian elimination

References

1. Cramer, Gabriel (1750). "Introduction à

l'Analyse des lignes Courbes algébriques"
(https://www.europeana.eu/resolve/record/
03486/E71FE3799CEC1F8E2B7696251382
9D2E36B63015) (in French). Geneva:
Europeana. pp. 656–659. Retrieved
2012-05-18.

2. Kosinski, A. A. (2001). "Cramer's Rule is due

to Cramer". Mathematics Magazine. 74 (4):
310–312. doi:10.2307/2691101 (https://do
i.org/10.2307%2F2691101) .
JSTOR 2691101 (https://www.jstor.org/sta
ble/2691101) .
3. MacLaurin, Colin (1748). A Treatise of
Algebra, in Three Parts (https://archive.org/
details/atreatisealgebr03maclgoog) .

4. Boyer, Carl B. (1968). A History of

Mathematics (2nd ed.). Wiley. p. 431.

5. Katz, Victor (2004). A History of

Mathematics (Brief ed.). Pearson
Education. pp. 378–379.

6. Hedman, Bruce A. (1999). "An Earlier Date

for "Cramer's Rule" " (http://professorhedma
n.com/Cramers.Rule.pdf) (PDF). Historia
Mathematica. 26 (4): 365–368.
doi:10.1006/hmat.1999.2247 (https://doi.or
g/10.1006%2Fhmat.1999.2247) .
S2CID 121056843 (https://api.semanticsch
olar.org/CorpusID:121056843) .
 7. David Poole (2014). Linear Algebra: A
Modern Introduction. Cengage Learning.
p. 276. ISBN 978-1-285-98283-0.

8. Joe D. Hoffman; Steven Frankel (2001).

Numerical Methods for Engineers and
Scientists, Second Edition. CRC Press.
p. 30. ISBN 978-0-8247-0443-8.

9. Thomas S. Shores (2007). Applied Linear

Algebra and Matrix Analysis. Springer
Science & Business Media. p. 132.
ISBN 978-0-387-48947-6.

10. Nicholas J. Higham (2002). Accuracy and

Stability of Numerical Algorithms: Second
Edition. SIAM. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-89871-
521-7.
11. Ken Habgood; Itamar Arel (2012). "A
condensation-based application of
Cramerʼs rule for solving large-scale linear
systems" (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/h
al-01500199/document) . Journal of
Discrete Algorithms. 10: 98–109.
doi:10.1016/j.jda.2011.06.007 (https://doi.o
rg/10.1016%2Fj.jda.2011.06.007) .

12. G.I.Malaschonok (1983). "Solution of a

System of Linear Equations in an Integral
Ring". USSR J. Of Comput. Math. And Math.
Phys. 23: 1497–1500. arXiv:1711.09452 (ht
tps://arxiv.org/abs/1711.09452) .
13. Zhiming Gong; M. Aldeen; L. Elsner (2002).
"A note on a generalized Cramer's rule" (http
s://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0024-3795%280
1%2900469-4) . Linear Algebra and Its
Applications. 340 (1–3): 253–254.
doi:10.1016/S0024-3795(01)00469-4 (http
s://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0024-3795%280
1%2900469-4) .

14. Levi-Civita, Tullio (1926). The Absolute

Differential Calculus (Calculus of Tensors).
Dover. pp. 111–112. ISBN 9780486634012.

15. Robinson, Stephen M. (1970). "A Short

Proof of Cramer's Rule". Mathematics
Magazine. 43 (2): 94–95.
doi:10.1080/0025570X.1970.11976018 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1080%2F0025570X.1970.1
1976018) .
External links

Proof of Cramer's Rule Wikibo

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