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I have a 5x5 array that was calculated in Excel. It is too large to type into th

ID: 3561050 • Letter: I

Question

I have a 5x5 array that was calculated in Excel. It is too large to type into this note, so here is a description of what it looks like. It has a number 4 in the top left cell, and all the other cells are less than 1. Usually something like .03 a few are very small. I tried using the MINVERSE(array) function on the array, and all the values are returned with a ##NUM! error. As Iook at the array, everything is a number. Does the problem have something to do with the size of numbers in the cells and the fact that all but one are less than #1. Is there something else going on?   

Explanation / Answer

'Some square matrices cannot be inverted and will return the ##NUM! error value with MINVERSE. The determinant for a noninvertable matrix is 0'.

Try this where A1:E5 is you 5*5 matrix, if it returns zero them MINVERSE will return ##NUM! error.

=MDETERM(A1:E5).