silemus.

23Rank by row reduction

Find the rank of A=[123246101]\displaystyle A = \begin{bmatrix}1 & 2 & 3\\2 & 4 & 6\\1 & 0 & 1\end{bmatrix}.

Row reduce A: R2 − 2R1 and R3 − R1 turn it into a matrix with only two nonzero rows, [1,2,3] and [0,−2,−2]. So rank(A) = 2, confirmed since row 2 is just twice row 1.

How good is this answer?