Talk:Sylvester's formula

[See also Talk:Frobenius covariant, section "Normalizing the eigenvectors" --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 22:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)]

Added "disputed" tag
It seems only to apply (as written) if the matrix is diagonalizable with distinct eigenvalues, and can be adapted only if the matrix is diagonalizable. I'll get back to it, later, but there may very well be a problem. &mdash; Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Rewritten
In a belated response to the problems highlighted by Arthur, I completely rewrote the entry, based on the reference now included in the article. I've moved the article to Sylvester's formula since that's what the result is called in the Horn & Johnson book. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Split off Frobenius covariant
I have split off the definition and computation of the Frobenius covariants to their own article, since they certainly deserve one, and the split allows both topics to be presented more clearly. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 22:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to undo the move
I would like to move the article back to "Sylvester's matrix theorem", since it is somewhat more descriptive and less ambiguous. While "Sylvester's formula" is (mostly) unambiguous in the context of matrix theory, such as in the cited reference, it is not so in the wider context of mathematics: there are several other "formulas", "equations", etc. named after good old JJ (see this disamb page for a possibly incomplete list). In particular, there is a "Sylvester's formula" for the "Frobenius number" (hey, the two guys were really fond of each other! 8-), which has nothing to do with matrices --- it is the solution to the coin problem of Diophantine theory. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)