[SciPy-user] characteristic polynomials?

[Dan Christensen]

Nils Wagner <nwagner at iam.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:

> Dan Christensen wrote:
>> Can scipy compute the characteristic polynomial of a matrix?  I guess
>> I could compute the eigenvalues lambda_i, and then multiply together
>> polynomials of the form x - lambda_i, but I was wondering if there
>> was a more direct way.
>
> Just curious - why are you interested in the characteristic polynomial ?

I'm looking for patterns in the coefficients of the characteristic
polynomials of a large family of matrices.  I already know that the
trace and determinant have nice properties, so I'm exploring whether
the other coefficients are equally interesting.

Dan