squaring a matrix ?



>>>>> "hvn" == hvn  <huubvanniekerk at yahoo.com> writes:

    hvn> Hi,
    hvn> Using Scilab 5.4.0 on Linux, I wanted to calculate the square of a 3x3 
    hvn> matrix, and instead of 
    hvn> following the rules of linear algebra by doing A11*A11+A12*A21+A13*A31 
    hvn> for the (1,1) element of the result, Maxima just arithmetically squared 
    hvn> each element of the matrix. A multiplication of 2 unequal matrices did go 
    hvn> well btw. So how do I get the correct square of a matrix?

"? matrix" is your friend.  It's not clear exactly what you did, but
the documentation there says that A^2 squares the elements of a
matrix, but A^^2 is the matrix product of A and A, which is probably
what you wanted.

Ray