most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net 2013-06-19T14:32:42Z http://mathoverflow.net/feeds/user/10916 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://mathoverflow.net/questions/13526/geometric-interpretation-of-trace/46425#46425 fpb812 2010-11-17T23:01:23Z 2010-11-17T23:01:23Z

<p>In an attempt to provide an answer consistent with the original request, how about: "Trace is the semiperimeter of a parallelopiped as measured along its spanning column vectors."</p> <p>It's important to be careful here. The original context implies an eigen problem in which a vector is mapped (perhaps with scaling) onto itself through a linear transformation (matrix multiplication). This follows from the mention of the determinant being the volume of the paralellopiped. The above answer is consistent with that. Other eigen problems should offer (require?) different interpretations of both "determinant" and "trace". -JF</p>