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In Standard Gaussian Elimination, what modification constitutes "Partial Pivoting"? I understand that Gaussian Elimination implies that we start with the matrix and take a diagonal element, divide by its value and subtract below (interchanging only if necessary). Does the fact that we look for the index with maximum absolute value constitute Partial Pivoting?

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Yes, that is correct. – Pedro Jan 17 at 22:37
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Your explanation is a bit confused- partial pivoting means that you swap rows to move the element in the pivot column with the largest absolute value to the diagonal and then use it to eliminate entries in other rows. "Full Pivoting" involves swapping columns as well as rows- this is very seldom done in practice. – Brian Borchers Jan 17 at 23:29
@BrianBorchers, I seem to have not framed that well. That is what I meant. I understand now. – Nunoxic Jan 18 at 2:07

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