Diagonalized matrices take the form
where the matrix
represents a set of eigenvectors (a basis for eigenspace) and
is a diagonal matrix (zeros everywhere but the diagonal) containing the eigenvalues. For example, given that
and
has eigenvalues
and
with eigenvectors
and
respectively, we find the following diagonalization for
:
Diagonalizaed matrices are useful for many things such as raising a matrix to a power: