any physical interpretation for these two matrices?

46 Views Asked by At

I know that the physical interpretation of $\begin{pmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\ \sin\theta & \cos \theta \end{pmatrix}$ is the rotation matrix.

But what are the physical interpretations of the matrices $\begin{pmatrix} \sin \theta & \cos \theta \\ -\cos\theta & \sin \theta \end{pmatrix}$ and $\begin{pmatrix} \sec \theta & \tan \theta \\ \tan\theta & \sec \theta \end{pmatrix}$ ?

I have tried with a couple of values but was unable to arrive at a conclusion.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On

$$\begin{pmatrix} \sin \theta & \cos \theta \\ -\cos\theta & \sin \theta \end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix} \cos \left(\theta-\frac{\pi}{2}\right) & -\sin \left(\theta-\frac{\pi}{2}\right) \\ \sin \left(\theta-\frac{\pi}{2}\right) & \cos \left(\theta-\frac{\pi}{2}\right) \end{pmatrix}$$

So it is also a rotation matrix.

A physical interpretation for the other is not so clear to me. But the diagonalization may help.

$$\begin{pmatrix} \sec \theta & \tan \theta \\ \tan\theta & \sec \theta \end{pmatrix}=\begin{pmatrix} -\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} \end{pmatrix} \begin{pmatrix} \sec \theta - \tan \theta & 0 \\ 0 & \sec \theta + \tan \theta \end{pmatrix}\begin{pmatrix} -\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} \end{pmatrix} $$