# Tagged: linearly independent

## Problem 424

Let $A$ and $B$ be $n\times n$ matrices.
Suppose that $A$ and $B$ have the same eigenvalues $\lambda_1, \dots, \lambda_n$ with the same corresponding eigenvectors $\mathbf{x}_1, \dots, \mathbf{x}_n$.
Prove that if the eigenvectors $\mathbf{x}_1, \dots, \mathbf{x}_n$ are linearly independent, then $A=B$.

## Problem 415

(a) Let $R$ be a commutative ring. If we regard $R$ as a left $R$-module, then prove that any two distinct elements of the module $R$ are linearly dependent.

(b) Let $f: M\to M’$ be a left $R$-module homomorphism. Let $\{x_1, \dots, x_n\}$ be a subset in $M$. Prove that if the set $\{f(x_1), \dots, f(x_n)\}$ is linearly independent, then the set $\{x_1, \dots, x_n\}$ is also linearly independent.

## Problem 374

Let $A=\begin{bmatrix} a_0 & a_1 & \dots & a_{n-2} &a_{n-1} \\ a_{n-1} & a_0 & \dots & a_{n-3} & a_{n-2} \\ a_{n-2} & a_{n-1} & \dots & a_{n-4} & a_{n-3} \\ \vdots & \vdots & \dots & \vdots & \vdots \\ a_{2} & a_3 & \dots & a_{0} & a_{1}\\ a_{1} & a_2 & \dots & a_{n-1} & a_{0} \end{bmatrix}$ be a complex $n \times n$ matrix.
Such a matrix is called circulant matrix.
Then prove that the determinant of the circulant matrix $A$ is given by
$\det(A)=\prod_{k=0}^{n-1}(a_0+a_1\zeta^k+a_2 \zeta^{2k}+\cdots+a_{n-1}\zeta^{k(n-1)}),$ where $\zeta=e^{2 \pi i/n}$ is a primitive $n$-th root of unity.

## Problem 365

Let $f(x)=\sin^2(x)$, $g(x)=\cos^2(x)$, and $h(x)=1$. These are vectors in $C[-1, 1]$.
Determine whether the set $\{f(x), \, g(x), \, h(x)\}$ is linearly dependent or linearly independent.

(The Ohio State University, Linear Algebra Midterm Exam Problem)

## Problem 350

Let $V$ be a vector space over $\R$ and let $B$ be a basis of $V$.
Let $S=\{v_1, v_2, v_3\}$ be a set of vectors in $V$. If the coordinate vectors of these vectors with respect to the basis $B$ is given as follows, then find the dimension of $V$ and the dimension of the span of $S$.
$[v_1]_B=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 0 \\ 0 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}, [v_2]_B=\begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 1 \\ 0 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}, [v_3]_B=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 1 \\ 0 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}.$

## Problem 348

Let $A$ be an $n\times n$ complex matrix.
Let $p(x)=\det(xI-A)$ be the characteristic polynomial of $A$ and write it as
$p(x)=x^n+a_{n-1}x^{n-1}+\cdots+a_1x+a_0,$ where $a_i$ are real numbers.

Let $C$ be the companion matrix of the polynomial $p(x)$ given by
$C=\begin{bmatrix} 0 & 0 & \dots & 0 &-a_0 \\ 1 & 0 & \dots & 0 & -a_1 \\ 0 & 1 & \dots & 0 & -a_2 \\ \vdots & & \ddots & & \vdots \\ 0 & 0 & \dots & 1 & -a_{n-1} \end{bmatrix}= [\mathbf{e}_2, \mathbf{e}_3, \dots, \mathbf{e}_n, -\mathbf{a}],$ where $\mathbf{e}_i$ is the unit vector in $\C^n$ whose $i$-th entry is $1$ and zero elsewhere, and the vector $\mathbf{a}$ is defined by
$\mathbf{a}=\begin{bmatrix} a_0 \\ a_1 \\ \vdots \\ a_{n-1} \end{bmatrix}.$

Then prove that the following two statements are equivalent.

1. There exists a vector $\mathbf{v}\in \C^n$ such that
$\mathbf{v}, A\mathbf{v}, A^2\mathbf{v}, \dots, A^{n-1}\mathbf{v}$ form a basis of $\C^n$.
2. There exists an invertible matrix $S$ such that $S^{-1}AS=C$.
(Namely, $A$ is similar to the companion matrix of its characteristic polynomial.)

## Problem 329

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Let $T:\R^n \to \R$ be a non-zero linear transformation.
Prove the followings.

(a) The nullity of $T$ is $n-1$. That is, the dimension of the nullspace of $T$ is $n-1$.

(b) Let $B=\{\mathbf{v}_1, \cdots, \mathbf{v}_{n-1}\}$ be a basis of the nullspace $\calN(T)$ of $T$.
Let $\mathbf{w}$ be the $n$-dimensional vector that is not in $\calN(T)$. Then
$B’=\{\mathbf{v}_1, \cdots, \mathbf{v}_{n-1}, \mathbf{w}\}$ is a basis of $\R^n$.

(c) Each vector $\mathbf{u}\in \R^n$ can be expressed as
$\mathbf{u}=\mathbf{v}+\frac{T(\mathbf{u})}{T(\mathbf{w})}\mathbf{w}$ for some vector $\mathbf{v}\in \calN(T)$.

## Problem 313

(a) Let $A=\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 2 & 1 \\ 3 &6 &4 \end{bmatrix}$ and let
$\mathbf{a}=\begin{bmatrix} -3 \\ 1 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}, \qquad \mathbf{b}=\begin{bmatrix} -2 \\ 1 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}, \qquad \mathbf{c}=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}.$ For each of the vectors $\mathbf{a}, \mathbf{b}, \mathbf{c}$, determine whether the vector is in the null space $\calN(A)$. Do the same for the range $\calR(A)$.

(b) Find a basis of the null space of the matrix $B=\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 1 & 2 \\ -2 &-2 &-4 \end{bmatrix}$.

## Problem 309

Let $V$ be a real vector space of all real sequences
$(a_i)_{i=1}^{\infty}=(a_1, a_2, \dots).$ Let $U$ be the subspace of $V$ consisting of all real sequences that satisfy the linear recurrence relation $a_{k+2}-5a_{k+1}+3a_{k}=0$ for $k=1, 2, \dots$.

(a) Let
\begin{align*}
\mathbf{u}_1&=(1, 0, -3, -15, -66, \dots)\\
\mathbf{u}_2&=(0, 1, 5, 22, 95, \dots)
\end{align*}
be vectors in $U$. Prove that $\{\mathbf{u}_1, \mathbf{u}_2\}$ is a basis of $U$ and conclude that the dimension of $U$ is $2$.

(b) Let $T$ be a map from $U$ to $U$ defined by
$T\big((a_1, a_2, \dots)\big)=(a_2, a_3, \dots).$ Verify that the map $T$ actually sends a vector $(a_i)_{i=1}^{\infty}\in V$ to a vector $T\big((a_i)_{i=1}^{\infty}\big)$ in $U$, and show that $T$ is a linear transformation from $U$ to $U$.

(c) With respect to the basis $\{\mathbf{u}_1, \mathbf{u}_2\}$ obtained in (a), find the matrix representation $A$ of the linear transformation $T:U \to U$ from (b).

## Problem 292

Let $V$ be a subset of the vector space $\R^n$ consisting only of the zero vector of $\R^n$. Namely $V=\{\mathbf{0}\}$.
Then prove that $V$ is a subspace of $\R^n$.

## Problem 284

Let $\mathbf{v}_1$ and $\mathbf{v}_2$ be $2$-dimensional vectors and let $A$ be a $2\times 2$ matrix.

(a) Show that if $\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2$ are linearly dependent vectors, then the vectors $A\mathbf{v}_1, A\mathbf{v}_2$ are also linearly dependent.

(b) If $\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2$ are linearly independent vectors, can we conclude that the vectors $A\mathbf{v}_1, A\mathbf{v}_2$ are also linearly independent?

(c) If $\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2$ are linearly independent vectors and $A$ is nonsingular, then show that the vectors $A\mathbf{v}_1, A\mathbf{v}_2$ are also linearly independent.

## Problem 281

(a) For what value(s) of $a$ is the following set $S$ linearly dependent?
$S=\left \{\,\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2 \\ 3 \\ a \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} a \\ 0 \\ -1 \\ 2 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 0 \\ a^2 \\ 7 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ a \\ 1 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 2 \\ -2 \\ 3 \\ a^3 \end{bmatrix} \, \right\}.$

(b) Let $\{\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2, \mathbf{v}_3\}$ be a set of nonzero vectors in $\R^m$ such that the dot product
$\mathbf{v}_i\cdot \mathbf{v}_j=0$ when $i\neq j$.
Prove that the set is linearly independent.

## Problem 277

Determine whether the following set of vectors is linearly independent or linearly dependent. If the set is linearly dependent, express one vector in the set as a linear combination of the others.
$\left\{\, \begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 0 \\ -1 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2 \\ 3 \\ 4 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} -1 \\ -2 \\ 0 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} -2 \\ -2 \\ 7 \\ 11 \end{bmatrix}\, \right\}.$

## Problem 260

Let $A=\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 1 & 2 \\ 2 &2 &4 \\ 2 & 3 & 5 \end{bmatrix}.$

(a) Find a matrix $B$ in reduced row echelon form such that $B$ is row equivalent to the matrix $A$.

(b) Find a basis for the null space of $A$.

(c) Find a basis for the range of $A$ that consists of columns of $A$. For each columns, $A_j$ of $A$ that does not appear in the basis, express $A_j$ as a linear combination of the basis vectors.

(d) Exhibit a basis for the row space of $A$.

## Problem 256

Let $P_4$ be the vector space consisting of all polynomials of degree $4$ or less with real number coefficients.
Let $W$ be the subspace of $P_2$ by
$W=\{ p(x)\in P_4 \mid p(1)+p(-1)=0 \text{ and } p(2)+p(-2)=0 \}.$ Find a basis of the subspace $W$ and determine the dimension of $W$.

## Problem 253

Determine whether the following is true or false. If it is true, then give a proof. If it is false, then give a counterexample.

Let $W_1$ and $W_2$ be subspaces of the vector space $\R^n$.
If $B_1$ and $B_2$ are bases for $W_1$ and $W_2$, respectively, then $B_1\cap B_2$ is a basis of the subspace $W_1\cap W_2$.

## Problem 211

In this post, we explain how to diagonalize a matrix if it is diagonalizable.

As an example, we solve the following problem.

Diagonalize the matrix
$A=\begin{bmatrix} 4 & -3 & -3 \\ 3 &-2 &-3 \\ -1 & 1 & 2 \end{bmatrix}$ by finding a nonsingular matrix $S$ and a diagonal matrix $D$ such that $S^{-1}AS=D$.

(Update 10/15/2017. A new example problem was added.)

## Problem 201

Let $C[-\pi, \pi]$ be the vector space of all continuous functions defined on the interval $[-\pi, \pi]$.

Show that the subset $\{\cos(x), \sin(x)\}$ in $C[-\pi, \pi]$ is linearly independent.

## Problem 194

Find the value(s) of $h$ for which the following set of vectors
$\left \{ \mathbf{v}_1=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 0 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}, \mathbf{v}_2=\begin{bmatrix} h \\ 1 \\ -h \end{bmatrix}, \mathbf{v}_3=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2h \\ 3h+1 \end{bmatrix}\right\}$ is linearly independent.

(Boston College, Linear Algebra Midterm Exam Sample Problem)

Let $A$ be an $n\times n$ matrix. Suppose that $\lambda_1, \lambda_2$ are distinct eigenvalues of the matrix $A$ and let $\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2$ be eigenvectors corresponding to $\lambda_1, \lambda_2$, respectively.
Show that the vectors $\mathbf{v}_1, \mathbf{v}_2$ are linearly independent.