Find maximum and minimum value of a matrix

One-liner:

for max:

matrix = [[1, 2, 4], [8, 9, 0]]
print (max(map(max, matrix))
9

for min:

print (min(map(min, matrix))
0

Use the built-in functions max() and min() after stripping the list of lists:

matrix = [[1, 2, 4], [8, 9, 0]]
dup = []
for k in matrix:
    for i in k:
        dup.append(i)

print (max(dup), min(dup))

This runs as:

>>> matrix = [[1, 2, 4], [8, 9, 0]]
>>> dup = []
>>> for k in matrix:
...     for i in k:
...         dup.append(i)
... 
>>> print (max(dup), min(dup))
(9, 0)
>>> 

If you don't want to use new data structures and are looking for the smallest amount of code possible:

max_value = max([max(l) for l in matrix])
min_value = min([min(l) for l in matrix])

If you don't want to go through the matrix twice:

max_value = max(matrix[0])
min_value = min(matrix[0])

for row in matrix[1:]:
    max_value = max(max_value, max(row))
    min_value = min(min_value, min(row))