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If A a matrix in Mathematica, e.g.

A = {{1, 2}, {4, 5}}

the usual matrix operations on A, Det[A], Transpose[A], Inverse[A], etc. all produce the correct numerical output.

However if we apply the same operations on MatrixForm[A], the numerical output is not produced. For example Transpose[MatrixForm[A]] results in

enter image description here

Why is this the case?

Richard Gostanian
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    why not asking on Mathematica.SE ? Also MatrixForm is a display function not a computational one as far as I know. – percusse Apr 23 '18 at 00:23
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    The. idea of Mathematics being smart enough to strip off the MatrixForm, do the operation and reapply the MatrixForm was proposed to Wolfram at least once more than a decade ago and nothing was ever done about this. Likewise for the other *Forms. They are used strictly to produce something pretty to look at, not for further use, well except for InputForm. – Bill Apr 23 '18 at 01:10
  • see here, and i'm sure if you try to ask the question it will just get closed. The "why" can only be answered by wolfram support. https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/3098/why-does-matrixform-affect-calculations – agentp Apr 23 '18 at 12:44
  • I can't answer why, but I usually do this to create variables and present them nicely.(myvar = Transpose[{{1,2},{3,4}}])//MatrixForm – Manuel Hernandez Jul 24 '22 at 12:35

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