Definition of Matrix

A matrix is a collection of numbers arranged into a fixed number of rows and columns. Usually the numbers are real numbers. In general, matrices can contain complex numbers but we won't see those here. Here is an example of a matrix with three rows and three columns:

The top row is row 1. The leftmost column is column 1. This matrix is a 3x3 matrix because it has three rows and three columns. In describing matrices, the format is:

rows X columns
Each number that makes up a matrix is called an element of the matrix. The elements in a matrix have specific locations. The upper left corner of the matrix is row 1 column 1. In the above matrix the element at row 1 col 1 is the value 1. The element at row 2 column 3 is the value 4.6.

Row equivalence
In linear algebra, two matrices are row equivalent if one can be changed to the other by a sequence of elementary row operations. Alternatively, two m n matrices are row equivalent if and only if they have the same row space. The concept is most commonly applied to matrices that represent systems of linear equations, in which case two matrices of the same size are row equivalent if and only if the corresponding homogeneous systems have the same set of solutions, or equivalently the matrices have the same null space. Because elementary row operations are reversible, row equivalence is an equivalence relation. It is commonly denoted by a tilde (~). There is a similar notion of column equivalence, defined by elementary column operations; two matrices are column equivalent if and only if their transpose matrices are row equivalent. Two rectangular matrices that can be converted into one another allowing both elementary row and column operations are called simply equivalent.