linalg:det

(linalg:det matrix)

Returns the determinant of a square matrix, computed by Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting in floating point. A non-square argument signals an error. A zero determinant is the condition under which linalg:inv and linalg:solve fail; note that because the computation is floating point, a nearly singular matrix may yield a small epsilon rather than exactly 0 (the example below is exact only because its elimination is roundoff-free).