Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

After you've done that, please explain in one sentence with fewer than 20 words how a determinant is a measure of fullness-of-span in n-dimensional space. I know that it is, but I've never understood the intuition.


V. I. Arnold uses 17 words:

"The determinant of a matrix is an (oriented) volume of the parallelepiped whose edges are its columns."

http://pauli.uni-muenster.de/~munsteg/arnold.html


A determinant describes changes in volume under transformation, and an (n-1)-dimensional set of points has zero n-dimensional volume.

(very sketchy, but it's the best I could come up with under the constraints)


Brilliant effort!




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: