> And what's the motivation behind the formula for the determinant? FWIW, that book has two explanations: the first on p 296 is a lot like "that's how it works

> And what's the motivation behind the formula for the determinant? FWIW, that book has two explanations: the first on p 296 is a lot like "that's how it works out" and the second on p 320 is geometric. > why does the determinant work to solve linear equations (i.e. Cramer's rule)? Does the explanation on p 331 of joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/book.pdf help? (It uses the geometric understanding of the determinant.)