Question

I have a matrix with a bunch of unknown constants such as the one below:

  a*b     -c     -d     0
   -c      e     -a    -b-d
   -d     -a      d    -e
    0     -b-d   -e     a

As you may realize it is symmetric about the diagonal and therefore, the diagonal values are all positive. All constants are greater than 0.

I would like to solve this for the eigenvalues in matlab. How would I go about doing this? I do not know the values a,b,c,d, and e. I would like to do something like this:

d = eig(@getMatrix)

but the eig function does not accept function handles.

Answer 1

No problem in MATLAB.

>> syms a b c d e
>> M = [a*b     -c     -d     0
   -c      e     -a    -b-d
   -d     -a      d    -e
    0     -b-d   -e     a];

>> eig(M)
ans =
 a/4 + d/4 + e/4 + (a*b)/4 - ((51*a*d^3)/16 - (117*a^4*b)/16 + (27*a^3*d)/16 + (27*a*e^3)/16 + (57*b*d^3)/2 + (27*a^3*e)/16 + (27*d*e^3)/16 + (51*d^3*e)/16 + 6*((4*(2*b*d - (a*e)/4 - (a*d)/4 - (d*e)/4 - (a^2*b)/4 + (11*a^2)/8 + b^2 + c^2 + (19*d^2)/8 + (11*e^2)/8 + (3*a^2*b^2)/8 - (a*b*d)/4 - (a*b*e)/4)*((17*a*d^3)/64 - (39*a^4*b)/64 + (9*a^3*d)/64 + (9*a*e^3)/64 + (19*b*d^3)/8 + (9*a^3*e)/64 + (9*d*e^3)/64 + (17*d^3*e)/64 + (45*a^4)/256 + (285*d^4)/256 + (45*e^4)/256 - (a^2*b^2)/16 + (a^2*b^3)/8 + (3*a^2*b^4)/16 + (31*a^4*b^2)/128 + (a^4*b^3)/64 - (3*a^4*b^4)/256 + (3*a^2*c^2)/16 + (15*a^2*d^2)/128 - (9*a^2*e^2)/128 + (19*b^2*d^2)/16 - (b^2*e^2)/16 + (3*c^2*d^2)/16 + (15*c^2*e^2)/16 + 
...

(a*b*c^2*e)/8 + (3*a*b*d*e^2)/64 + (11*a*b*d^2*e)/64 + (a*b^2*d*e)/4 - (33*a^2*b*d*e)/32 - (5*a^2*b^2*d*e)/64 + (a*b*d*e)/4 + (a*c*d*e)/2 - 2*b*c*d*e) - 256*((17*a*d^3)/64 - (39*a^4*b)/64 + (9*a^3*d)/64 + (9*a*e^3)/64 + (19*b*d^3)/8 + (9*a^3*e)/64 + (9*d*e^3)/64 + (17*d^3*e)/64 + (45*a^4)/256 + (285*d^4)/256 + (45*e^4)/256 - (a^2*b^2)/16 + (a^2*b^3)/8 + (3*a^2*b^4)/16 + (31*a^4*b^2)/128 + (a^4*b^3)/64 - (3*a^4*b^4)/256 + (3*a^2*c^2)/16 + (15*a^2*d^2)/128 - (9*a^2*e^2)/128 + (19*b^2*d^2)/16 - (b^2*e^2)/16 + (3*c^2*d^2)/16 + (15*c^2*e^2)/16 + (15*d^2*e^2)/1...

Output truncated.  Text exceeds maximum line length of 25,000 characters for Command Window display.

I deleted a lot there. Admittedly, its rather messy and lengthy, but can you really expect better?

Edit: I should comment that such a long extended formula may be dangerous in terms of computational accuracy. I’ve seen people blindly use such a mess of an expression, evaluating it in Fortran or MATLAB. They think that because it is “symbolic” that it is also exact. This is a total fallacy when numerical computations are done.

There may well be immense subtractive cancellation in those terms, with huge positive and negative terms almost canceling each other out, leaving a tiny result that is essentially worthless because of the limited dynamic range of floating point computations. BEWARE. At the very least, compare single and double precision computations done with the same expression. If they differ by any significant amount, try an extended precision version to verify there is not a problem for the doubles. If you have not tested such an expression and verified it extensively, don’t trust it.