Why is completing the square on xᵀAx secretly Gaussian elimination, with the pivots appearing outside the squares and the multipliers appearing inside?
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Multiplying out
Carry out the multiplication for the symmetric matrix, and record that the result is a purely degree-2 polynomial with no linear or constant terms.
The sum-of-squares rewriting
Work the algebra of , then record the result and the result with its vanishing second square.
Pivots outside the squares, multipliers inside
Run elimination on the matrix with rows and to produce the pivots and and the multiplier , then match each number to its place in the sum of squares.