MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Dipankar Ghosh
(IIT Hyderabad)

February 08, 2019

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Welcome!

Welcome to my course MA 1140.

We’ll study Elementary Linear Algebra in the next four weeks.
I will follow the text books:
“Linear Algebra” written by K. Hoffman and R. Kunze
“Linear Algebra and Its Applications” by Gilbert Strang.
I will make the lecture notes. So you can follow that also.
In case you need any further assistance, please get in touch
with me or one of your course associates.
My office is Academic Block C, Room No. 208-G.
Email ID is [email protected]

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

What is Linear Algebra?
Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear
equations such as
a1 x1 + · · · + an xn = b
linear functions such as
(x1 , . . . , xn ) 7→ a1 x1 + . . . + an xn
and their representations through matrices and vector spaces.
It is central to almost all areas of mathematics.
For instance, linear algebra is fundamental in modern
presentations of geometry: for describing basic objects such as
lines, planes and rotations.
It is also used in most sciences and engineering areas, because
it allows modeling many natural phenomena, and efficiently
computing with such models. I will get back to this point
later.
Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra
Vector Space

MA 1140 is the study of ‘vector spaces’ and the ‘maps’

between them.
For now, we keep Rn as an example of a vector space.
Essentially, a vector space means a collection of objects, we
call them vectors, where we can add two vectors, and what we
get is a vector; we can multiply a vector by a scalar, and what
we get is a vector.

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Definition of Vector Space
A set V of objects (called vectors) along with vector addition ‘+’
and scalar multiplication ‘·’ is said to be a vector space over a field
F (say, F = R, the set of real numbers) if the following hold:
1 V is closed under ‘+’, i.e. x + y ∈ V for all x, y ∈ V .
2 Addition is commutative, i.e. x + y = y + x for all x, y ∈ V .
3 Addition is associative, i.e. (x + y ) + z = x + (y + z) for all
x, y , z ∈ V .
4 Additive identity, i.e. there is 0 ∈ V such that x + 0 = x for
all x ∈ V .
5 Additive inverse, i.e. for every x ∈ V , there is −x ∈ V such
that x + (−x) = 0.
6 V is closed under ‘·’, i.e. c · x ∈ V for all c ∈ F and x ∈ V .
7 1 · x = x for all x ∈ V .
8 a · (b · x) = (ab) · x for all a, b ∈ R and x ∈ V .
9 a · (x + y ) = a · x + a · y for all a ∈ R and x, y ∈ V .
10 (a + b) · x = a · x + b · x for all a, b ∈ R and x ∈ V .
Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra
Examples of vector spaces

(1) The n-tuple space, V = Rn .

         
x1 y1 x1 + y1 x1 cx1
x2  y2  x2 + y2  x2  cx2 
 ..  +  ..  =  ..  and c ·  .  =  . 
         
. .  .   ..   .. 
xn yn xn + yn xn cxn

(2) The space Rm×n of all m × n matrices

 
x11 x12 · · · x1n
 x21 x22 · · · x2n 
..  where xij ∈ R.
 
 .. .. ..
 . . . . 
xm1 xm2 ··· xmn

Component wise addition and component wise scalar

multiplication.
Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra
Examples

(3) Let S be any non-empty set. Let V be the set of all functions
from S into R. The sum f + g of two vectors f and g in V is
defined to be

(f + g )(s) := f (s) + g (s) for all s ∈ S.

The scalar multiplication c · f (for c ∈ R) is defined by

(c · f )(s) := c f (s) for all s ∈ S.

Is V a vector space? Answer: Yes.

(4) The set R[x] of all polynomials a0 + a1 x + · · · + am x m , where
ai ∈ R, x is an indeterminate and m varies over non-negative
integers. The vector addition and scalar multiplication are
defined in obvious way. Then R[x] is a vector space over R.

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Examples

(5) The set Rn×n of

all n × n matrices with vector addition:
   
x11 x12· · · x1n y11 y12 · · · y1n
x21 x22 · · · x2n 
 y21 y22 · · · y2n 
 
..  ×  ..

 .. .... .. . .. .
.. 
 . . . .   . . 
xn1 xn2 · · · xnn yn1 yn2 · · · ynn
 
−− P −− −−
= −− ( nk=1 xik ykj ) −− (matrix multiplication)
−− −− −−

and scalar multiplication as before.

Is V a vector space? Answer: No.

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Rn×n with matrix multiplication ‘×’ is not a vector space

Reasons:
The operation ‘×’ is not commutative, because
           
1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0
× = 6= = ×
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Moreover, every matrix does not necessarily

  have
1 0
multiplicative inverse. For example, does not have
0 0
multiplicative inverse, because it is not possible to find a
matrix A such that
   
1 0 1 0
×A= .
0 0 0 1

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Linear Combination

Definition
A vector β in V is said to be a linear combination of vectors
α1 , α2 and αr in V if

β = c1 α1 + c2 α2 + · · · + cr αr for some c1 , c2 , . . . , cr ∈ R.

Example
In R2 ,          
1 1 0 1 1
= + =2 + (−1) .
2 0 2 1 0

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Subspaces

Definition
Let V be a vector space over R. A subspace of V is a subset W of
V which is itself a vector space over R with the same operations of
vector addition and scalar multiplication on V .

Theorem
Let W be a non-empty subset of a vector space V over R.
Then W is a subspace of V

if and only if

for each pair of vectors α, β ∈ W and each scalar c ∈ R, the

vector cα + β belongs to W .

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Examples

The subset W consisting of the zero vector of V is a subspace

of V .
In Rn , the set of n-tuples (x1 , . . . , xn ) with x1 = 0 is a
subspace; while the set of n-tuples with x1 = 1 is NOT a
subspace.
The set of all ‘symmetric matrices’ forms a subspace of the
space of all n × n matrices. Recall that an n × n square matrix
A is said to be symmetric if Aij = Aji for each i and j.

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Subspace spanned by a set

Definition
Let S be a set of vectors in a vector space V . The subspace
spanned by (or generated by) S is defined to be the smallest
subspace of V containing S.

Theorem
Let S be a set of vectors in a vector space V . The following
subspaces are equal.
1 The intersection of all subspaces of V containing S.
2 The set of all linear combinations of vectors in S, i.e.

{c1 v1 + · · · + cr vr : ci ∈ R, vi ∈ S}.

3 The subspace spanned by S, i.e. the smallest subspace of V

containing S.

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

Subspace spanned by a set

Theorem
Let S be a subset of V . The following subspaces are equal.
1 The intersection of all subspaces of V containing S.
2 The set of all linear combinations of vectors in S, i.e.
{c1 v1 + · · · + cr vr : ci ∈ R, vi ∈ S}.
3 The subspace spanned by S, i.e. the smallest subspace of V
containing S.

Proof. Let W1 , W2 and W3 be the subspaces described as in (1),

(2) and (3) respectively. Clearly, W1 is contained in any subspace
of V containing S. Since W1 is a subspace, W1 is the smallest
subspace of V containing S, i.e. W1 = W3 .
Note that W2 is a subspace containing S. So W1 ⊆ W2 . Notice
that any subspace of V containing S also contains all linear
combinations of vectors in S. Hence it follows that W2 ⊆ W1 .
Therefore W1 = W2 . Thus W1 = W2 = W3 .
Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra
Examples

1 Let V = R2×2 be the space of all 2 × 2 matrices over R. Set

     
1 0 0 0 0 1
S := , , .
0 0 0 1 1 0

The subspace spanned by S is the subspace of all 2 × 2

symmetric matrices over R.
2 Let V = R[x] (set of all polynomials). Set

S := {fn (x) = x n : n = 0, 1, 2, . . .}.

Then the subspace spanned by S is V .

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra

 Thank You!

Dipankar Ghosh (IIT Hyderabad) MA 1140: Elementary Linear Algebra