I was recently asked to find the right inverse of some matrixes. I found that all three of them were invertible, so it was just a matter of finding their inverses, which would be exactly the same as the right inverses.
What if a matrix is not invertible?
Basically, what I want to know is, if a matrix is not invertible, does it mean that there are no left and/or right inverses at all? That is,
$$|A| = 0 \iff \not \exists B(AB = I \ \lor \ BA = I)$$
Best Answer
If your matrix $A$ is square, then $A$ has a left inverse if and only if $A$ is invertible. Also, if $A$ is square, then $A$ has a right inverse if and only if $A$ is invertible.
It is possible to construct noninvertible nonsquare matrices with a right inverse. For example, consider the projection $\Bbb R^2\to \Bbb R$. This is given by the matrix $$\begin{bmatrix}1 &0\end{bmatrix}$$ Its right inverse is $$\begin{bmatrix}1\\ 0\end{bmatrix}$$ Of course, the second matrix in this example is an example of a noninvertible matrix with a left inverse.