Asked by Makayla

Solve C = AB + D for B.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
Start by rearranging:
AB + D = C
AB = C − D.

Now solve AB = E where E := C − D.

- If A is (square) invertible:
B = A^{-1}E = A^{-1}(C − D).

- If A is not invertible (or not square), let A^+ denote a left inverse or the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse. A general solution is
B = A^+(C − D) + (I − A^+A)X,
where X is an arbitrary matrix of the same size as B. (I − A^+A) projects onto the nullspace of A, so the second term parameterizes the homogeneous solutions AB = 0.

- Equivalently, if N is any matrix whose columns span the nullspace of A, write
B = A^+(C − D) + N W
for arbitrary W (of appropriate size).

Note: A solution exists exactly when each column of C − D lies in the column space of A; the pseudoinverse formula gives the minimum-norm (least-squares) solution when an exact solution does not exist.