Is there a linear transformation that would flip the elements of a matrix around its center

linear algebralinear-transformationsmatricespermutation-matricespermutations

Is there a linear transformation that would move the elements of a matrix in the following fashion? or some combination of other matrix operations including the transpose etc?

$$
\begin{gather}
\begin{bmatrix} a_{11} & a_{12} & a_{13} \\ a_{21} & a_{22} & a_{23} \\ a_{31} & a_{32} & a_{33} \end{bmatrix}
\xrightarrow{\;\;T\;\;}
\begin{bmatrix} \color{red}{a_{33}} & \color{blue}{a_{32}} & \color{green}{a_{31}} \\ \color{orange}{a_{23}} & a_{22} & \color{orange}{a_{21}} \\ \color{green}{a_{13}} & \color{blue}{a_{12}} & \color{red}{a_{11}} \end{bmatrix}
\end{gather}
$$

Best Answer

Of course:

Note that $e_ie_j^T$ where $i,j \in \{1, \ldots, 3\}$ and $e_i$ is the standard unit basis in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is a basis for $\mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3}$.

The linear map is:

$$L\left( e_ie_j^T \right)=e_{4-i}e_{4-j}^T$$

For example:

$$L\left( e_1e_1^T \right)=e_{3}e_{3}^T$$

We can permute the entries of a matrix and it is linear, we just have to describe the image of each basis element.

Related Question