Math 3A

Bonus Material

February 24th, 2014

The concepts of bases and coordinate vectors can be used to simplify problems in general vector spaces into their equivalent versions in Rn . In Ch
4.4 the idea of a coordinate vector for a polynomial is lightly touched upon
and used in HW problems 27 and 29. The idea is that Pn (R) has the same
dimension as Rn+1 and therefore acts just like it.
We can represent p(t) = a0 + a1 t + a2 t2 P2 (R) as a vector [a0 , a1 , a2 ] in
R3 and more easily determine if particular polynomial vectors are linearly
dependent or independent using our row operations.
In general we can do this for any vector space V . If dim(V ) = n, we know
there is a basis B = {v1 , v2 , . . . , vn } for V , and we can think of each vector
~u V as a vector in Rn as the coordinate vector with respect to B:
~u = a1~v1 + + an~vn [~u]B = [a1 , . . . , an ]
Testing for linear independence of {~u1 , . . . , ~uk } then becomes a question of
finding coordinate vectors for each ~ui and putting them into columns in a
matrix A and row reducing.

 
 
 

1 0
0 1
0 0
0 0
Example: Given V = M22 and B =
,
,
,
0 1

 0 0  0 0
1 0

1 2
1 0
0 1
1 1
Find a basis for W = span
,
,
,
2 1
0 1
1 0
1 1
First we coordinatize each matrix vector in terms of B:




1 2
1 0
= [1, 2, 2, 1]B
= [1, 0, 0, 1]B
2 1
0 1


Thenwe
1
2
A=
2
1

0 1
1 0

can
1
0
0
1

them
intocolumns of a matrix
A and RREF:
1
1 0 .5 .5

1
= 0 1 .5 .5
0 0 0 0
1
1
0 0 0 0

put
0
1
1
0


= [0, 1, 1, 0]B

1 1
1 1


= [1, 1, 1, 1]B

We see that only the first two columns have pivots, so a basis for W would
only have the first two vectors [1, 2, 2, 1]B and [1, 0, 0, 1]B . Of course, we

would turn
these back
and get our final basis for W , writing
 into matrices,

1 2
1 0
W = span
,
2 1
0 1
This concept can be further abused to help us with linear transformations
on general vector spaces: T : V W .
Remember that when T : Rn Rm was a linear transformation, there was
always a matrix [T ] Mmn such that T ~x = [T ]~x. When dim V = n and
dim W = m a similar claim can be made. Given two bases B and C for V
and W respectively, we can find a matrix [T ]CB such that [T (~v )]C = [T ]CB [~v ]B
= [T (bk )]C for each bk B, giving:

|
zn
|


p(0) p0 (0)
Example: Define T : P2 (R) M22 (R) by T (p(t)) =
0
p(1)

 
 
 p (1) 
1 0
0 1
0 0
0 0
Using B = {1, t, t2 } and C =
,
,
,
0 0
0 0
1 0
0 1
We apply T to each of our basis vectors in B and coordinatize in C:


1 0
T (b1 ) = T (1) =
= [1, 0, 1, 0]C = z1
 1 0
0 1
T (b2 ) = T (t) =
= [0, 1, 1, 1]C = z2
1 1 
0 0
T (b3 ) = T (t2 ) =
= [0, 0, 1, 2]C = z3
1 2

1 0 0
0 1 0

So [T ]CB =
1 1 1 .
0 1 2


a
b
2
Notice that for p(t) = a + bt + ct , we have T (p(t)) =
,
a + b + c b + 2c
and:

1 0 0
a
0 1 0 a

b
C
b =

[T ]B [p(t)]B =
a + b + c = [T (p(t))]C
1 1 1
c
0 1 2
b + 2c
This matrix will simply have columns zk

| |
C
[T ]B = z1 z2
| |

We can use this to find the kernel
and range of a transformation T more
easily. We can see that
N ull [T ]CB will give us the coordinatized vectors in


ker(T ) and Col [T ]CB will do the same for range(T ).
So, finding the range and kernel of the linear transformation defined in the
previous example should be simple. We can row reduce [T ]CB :

1 0 0
1 0 0
0 1 0

= 0 1 0
1 1 1
0 0 1
0 1 2
0 0 0


C
We see each of the columns in linearly
independent,
so
Col
[T
]
= span(z1 , z2 , z3 )
B

 
 

1 0
0 1
0 0
This means range(T ) = span(
,
,
)
1 0
1 1
1 2


Also we can see that N ull [T ]CB = {~0} is the trivial subspace, so ker(T ) is
also the trival subspace of P2 (R).
Homework Set:
For each linear transformation and bases provided below calculate
(a) [T ]CB , (b) the range of T , and (c) the kernel of T .
1. T : P2 (R) P2 (R) defined by T (p(t)) = p0 (t). Let B = C = {1, t, t2 }
T
2. T : M22
M22 defined
  by T
 (A)
 = A  A
 .

1 0
0 1
0 0
0 0
Let B = C =
,
,
,
0 0
0 0
1 0
0 1

3. T : P1 (R) P3 (R) defined by T (p(t)) = (t2 + 1)p(t) + 4tp0 (t)

Let B = 1, t and C = {1, t, t2 , t3 }
4. T : P2 (R) R defined by T (p(t)) =
Let B = {1, t, t2 } and C = {1}

R1
0

(1 t2 )p(t)dt

 

2 1
1 1
5. T : M22 M22 defined by T (A) =
A
0 2

 
 
1 0

1 0
0 1
0 0
0 0
Let B = C =
,
,
,
0 0
0 0
1 0
0 1