On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 04:51:00PM +0200, Rosario Garcia Gil wrote: > Hello > > I have this matrix which I am trying to invert. I get a message about > reciprocal condition number, what that does mean? > > > XT_X > [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] > [1,] 3 0 0 2 1 > [2,] 0 2 0 1 1 > [3,] 0 0 2 1 1 > [4,] 2 1 1 4 0 > [5,] 1 1 1 0 3 > > iXT_X <- solve(XT_X) > Error in solve.default(XT_X) : > system is computationally singular: reciprocal condition number = > 1.11022e-17
This matrix is exactly singular. For example, the sum of the first three rows is equal to the sum of the last two. cbind(1, 1, 1, -1, -1) %*% XT_X [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [1,] 0 0 0 0 0 For matrices with small integer entries, a test for singularity may be done using det(). det(XT_X) [1] 8.881784e-15 Since the exact determinant is an integer, it has to be zero and the difference from zero is due to rounding error. Hope this helps. Petr Savicky. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.