MT280: LINEAR ALGEBRA

STEFANIE GERKE BASED ON NOTES BY JAMES MCKEE

1. Revision from MT182 (with a few extras thrown in)

1.1. Vector spaces. We recall several key definitions from MT182.
Definition 1. A vector space (V, +, ·) over a field F (the scalars) is a set V of vectors
with two operations + and · (addition of vectors, and scalar multiplication)
V ×V → V
(v1 , v2 ) 7→ v1 + v2

F ×V → V
(λ, v) 7→ λ · v
satisfying lots of axioms, namely
• For all x, y ∈ V , we have x + y = y + x (addition is commutative).
• For all x, y, z ∈ V , we have x + (y + z) = (x + y) + z (addition is associative).
• There exists 0 ∈ V such that 0 + x = x + 0 = x.
• For each x ∈ V there exists y ∈ V such that x + y = 0 (so far these axioms say
that V is an abelian group under the operation of addition).
• For all a, b ∈ F and all x ∈ V , we have (ab)x = a(bx).
• For all a ∈ F and x, y ∈ V , we have a(x + y) = ax + ay.
• For all a, b ∈ F and all xinV , we have (a + b)x = ax + bx.
• For all x ∈ V we have 1ẋ = x where 1 is the multiplicative inverse of F.
There are some immediate consequences of this definition. Since V is an additive group
we know that the inverse is unique and we can denote the inverse of x by −x. Also note
that 0x = 0 where 0 is the additive inverse of F. To see this note that 0x + 0x = (0 + 0)x =
0x = 0x + 0 and since the inverse is unique 0x = 0.
Definition 2. A non-empty subset U of a vector space (V, +, ·) is called a subspace of V
if it forms a vector space (U, +, ·), that is U is a vector space using the same operations as
those in V .
You have seen in MT182 that it follows that (i) 0 ∈ U ; (ii) if x ∈ U , y ∈ U , then
x + y ∈ U ; (iii) if x ∈ U and a ∈ F , then ax ∈ U . In fact, we saw that these three
properties are equivalent to the definition of being a subspace (and provide a useful test).
Some standard examples of vector spaces:
(i) Fn , the set of all n-tuples (a1 , . . . , an ), with each ai in F, with addition and scalar
multiplication done componentwise
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2 STEFANIE GERKE BASED ON NOTES BY JAMES MCKEE

(ii) Mm×n (F), the set of all m × n matrices with entries from F, with addition and scalar
multiplication done componentwise
(iii) the set of all polynomials with coefficients in F, with the obvious rules for addition
and scalar multiplication
(iv) the subspace of (iii) where we pick r and then restrict to polynomials of degree at
most r
We met the delicate subject of linear independence.
Definition 3. Let (V, +, ·) be a vector space over F. A list of vectors v1 , . . . , vr ∈ V is
said to be linearly independent if 0 = a1 v1 + · · · + ar vr with a1 , . . . , ar ∈ F implies
a1 = · · · = ar = 0.
Recall that anything of the shape a1 v1 + · · · + ar vr is a linear combination of v1 , . . . ,
vr . As 0 = 0v1 + . . . + 0vr a list of vectors v1 , . . . , vr is linear independent if and only if
the only way to write 0 as a liner combination of v1 , . . . , vr is to take all coefficients equal
to 0.
Definition 4. The span of a set of vectors S, written span(S), is the set of all (finite)
linear combinations a1 v1 + · · · + ar vr with v1 , . . . , vr ∈ S and a1 , . . . , ar ∈ F. (If S is
empty, then we include 0 in its span, by convention.)
For any subset S ⊆ V , span(S) is a subspace of V . Note that span(∅) = {0}.
The set S is a spanning set if span(S) = V .
If a span(S) = V and also S is linearly independent, then we say that S is a basis for
V . (Some good will is needed here in switching between lists and sets.)
If V has a finite spanning set, then we say that V is finite-dimensional. We saw that
every finite-dimensional vector space has a finite basis, and that the number of elements in
such a basis is the same for all bases: this number is the dimension of V , written dim(V ).
If V is not finite-dimensional, then we write dim(V ) = ∞.
For the above four examples of vectors spaces the dimensions are (i) n, (ii) mn, (iii) ∞,
(iv) r + 1.