You should have a look at numpy if you do matrix manipulation. This is a module mainly written in C, which will be much faster than programming in pure python. Here is an example of how to invert a matrix, and do other matrix manipulation.
from numpy import matrix
from numpy import linalg
A = matrix( [[1,2,3],[11,12,13],[21,22,23]]) # Creates a matrix.
x = matrix( [[1],[2],[3]] ) # Creates a matrix (like a column vector).
y = matrix( [[1,2,3]] ) # Creates a matrix (like a row vector).
print A.T # Transpose of A.
print A*x # Matrix multiplication of A and x.
print A.I # Inverse of A.
print linalg.solve(A, x) # Solve the linear equation system.
You can also have a look at the array module, which is a much more efficient implementation of lists when you have to deal with only one data type.