Studying the various properties of MIN and MAX matrices - elementary vs. more advanced methods

Let T = {z1, z2, . . . , zn} be a finite multiset of real numbers, where z1 ≤ z2 ≤ · · · ≤ zn. The purpose of this article is to study the different properties of MIN and MAX matrices of the set T with min(zi , zj) and max(zi , zj) as their ij entries, respectively.We are going to do this by interpreting these matrices as so-called meet and join matrices and by applying some known results for meet and join matrices. Once the theorems are found with the aid of advanced methods, we also consider whether it would be possible to prove these same results by using elementary matrix methods only. In many cases the answer is positive.