MTH 311: ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA

PROBLEM SET 1

Part A: Practice Assignment

1. Determine which of the following subsets of Rn are subspaces.
a) All vectors (a1 , . . . , an ) such that a1 + · · · + an = 1.
b) All vectors (a1 , . . . , an ) such that a21 = a2 .
c) All vectors (a1 , . . . , an ) such that a1 + · · · + an = 0.
2. Let RR be the set of all real valued functions on R. Determine which of
the following subsets of RR are subspaces.
a) The set of all f ∈ RR such that f (1/2) ∈ Q.
c) The set of all f ∈ RR such that f (1) = 0.
3. Prove that the intersection of two subspaces is always a subspace. How
about the union of two subspaces? Give appropriate justification.
4. Show that a set of vectors, which contains a set of linearly dependent
vectors, is linearly dependent. What is the analogous statement about linearly
independent vectors?
5. Let v1 , . . . , vn be a basis for a vector space V . Prove that vi 6= 0 for
i = 1, 2, . . . , n.
6. Let W1 and W2 be two n − 1-dimensional subspaces of Rn . Prove that
dimension of (W1 ∩ W2 ) ≥ n − 2.
7. Which of the following mappings of R2 → R2 are linear transformations?
a) (x1 , x2 ) → (x2 , x1 ).
b) (x1 , x2 ) → (2x2 , x1 ).
c) (x1 , x2 ) → (x1 x2 , x1 ).
8. Let T be a linear transformation of V into W . Prove the following
a) T (0) = 0, and
b) T (−v) = −T (v) for all v ∈ V .
9. Let V be the set of all 2 × 2 matrices A with complex entries which satisfy
a11 + a22 = 0.
a) Show that V is a vector space over the field of real numbers, with the
usual operations of matrix addition and multiplication of a matrix by
a scalar.
b) Find a basis for this vector space.
c) Let W be the set of all matrices A in V such that a21 = −a12 . Prove
that W is a subspace of V and find a basis for W .
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10. If
v1 = (1, −1), w1 = (1, 0)

v2 = (2, −1), w2 = (0, 1)

v3 = (−3, 2), w3 = (1, 1)

is there a linear transformation T from R2 into R2 such that T (vi ) = wi for
i = 1, 2, 3.
11. Let V be the vector space of all n × n matrices over the field F , and let
B be a fixed n × n matrix. If

T (A) = AB − BA

verify that T is a linear transformation from V into V .

12. Let V be the space of n × 1 matrices over F and let W be the space of
m × 1 matrices over F . Let A be a fixed m × n matrix over F and let T be
the linear transformation from V into W defined by T (X) = AX. Prove that
T is the zero transformation if and only if A is the zero matrix.
13. Let V be a vector space and T a linear transformation from V into V .
Prove that the following two statements about T are equivalent.
a) R(T ) ∩ Ker(T ) is the zero subspace of V .
b) If T (T (v)) = 0, then T (v) = 0.

14. Let V be a vector space over the field F and T a linear operator on V . If
T 2 = 0, what can you say about the relation of R(T ) and Ker(T )? Give an
example of a linear operator T on R2 such that T 2 = 0 but T 6= 0.

Part B: Assignment for submission (due on 23/08/2018)

15. Let W1 and W2 be subspaces of a vector space V such that the set theoretic
union of W1 and W2 is also a subspace. Prove that one of the subspaces Wi
is contained in the other.
16. Let W1 and W2 be subspaces of a vector space V such that W1 + W2 = V
and W1 ∩W2 = {0}. Prove that for each vector v in V there are unique vectors
v1 in W1 and v2 in W2 such that v = v1 + v2 .
17. Let V and W be finite dimensional vector spaces over the field F . Prove
that V and W are isomorphic if and only if dim V = dim W .
18. Let T be a linear transformation of Rn into Rn . Prove that the following
statements about T are equivalent.
a) T is one-one.
b) T is onto.
c) T is an isomorphism of Rn onto Rn .
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19. Suppose the vectors v1 , v2 , v3 form a basis of a vector space V . Let
T : V → V be the linear map whose matrix with respect to this basis is
 
0 0 1
0 1 0 .
 
1 0 0
Determine the matrix of T with respect to the basis v1 , v1 + v2 , v1 + v2 + v3 of
V.
20. Let V and W be vector spaces over the field F and let U be an isomor-
phism of V onto W . Prove that T → U T U −1 is an isomorphism of L(V, V )
onto L(W, W ).