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Section 34.2 Terminology and notation

Jordan block

a square matrix of the form

\begin{equation*} J(\lambda) = \begin{bmatrix} \lambda \\ 1 \amp \lambda \\ \amp \ddots \amp \ddots \\ \amp \amp 1 \amp \lambda \end{bmatrix} \end{equation*}
Jordan normal form

a matrix in block-diagonal form, where every block is a Jordan block and all blocks with the same diagonal entry \(\lambda\) appear consecutively in order of descending size

Remark 34.2.1.

The condition that all blocks with the same diagonal entry \(\lambda_j\) appear in descending size is often left out of the definition of the form in other references. We have included it for “uniqueness” reasons. (See Subsection 34.3.2.)