Final answer:
To find the number of elements in a matrix, use the function 'size' in programming environments like MATLAB, which gives the dimensions of the matrix. Multiply the number of rows by the number of columns to obtain the total number of elements.
Step-by-step explanation:
To determine the number of elements in a matrix, you would use the function size if you are coding in a language such as MATLAB or Octave.
This function returns the number of rows and columns that the matrix has. In a more general mathematical context without a specific programming language, you would manually count the number of rows and multiply it by the number of columns in the matrix.
In MATLAB or a similar programming environment, assuming you have a matrix A, you might use size(A) to get a vector with two elements; the first is the number of rows, and the second is the number of columns.
To find the total number of elements, you would multiply these two numbers together. For example, if size(A) returns [3, 4], then the matrix A has 3 rows and 4 columns, so the total number of elements is 3 * 4 = 12.