TOPICS
Search

Sylvester's Inertia Law


The numbers of eigenvalues that are positive, negative, or 0 do not change under a congruence transformation. Gradshteyn and Ryzhik (2000) state it as follows: when a quadratic form Q in n variables is reduced by a nonsingular linear transformation to the form

 Q=y_1^2+y_2^2+...+y_p^2-y_(p+1)^2-y_(p_2)^2-...-y_r^2,

the number p of positive squares appearing in the reduction is an invariant of the quadratic form Q and does not depend on the method of reduction.


See also

Eigenvalue, Quadratic Form

Explore with Wolfram|Alpha

WolframAlpha

More things to try:

References

Gradshteyn, I. S. and Ryzhik, I. M. Tables of Integrals, Series, and Products, 6th ed. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, p. 1062, 2000.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Sylvester's Inertia Law

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Sylvester's Inertia Law." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SylvestersInertiaLaw.html

Subject classifications