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Span of a Set of Vectors

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Table of Contents
Span of a Set of Vectors
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

Span of a Set of Vectors

Be sure to review what a linear combination of a vector is before continuing on this
page.
Definition: Suppose that {v1 , v2 , . . . , vn } is a set of vectors of the vector space V . Then the Span of the Set {v1 , v2 , . . . , vn } denoted
n
span(v 1 , v 2 , . . . , v n ) and Fv i is the set of all linear combinations of the vectors in {v 1 , v 2 , . . . , v n }, that is, for any scalars k 1 , k 2 , . . . , k n ,
i=1

(k 1 v 1 + k 2 v 2 +. . . +k n v n ) span(V ) .

Let's first look at an example. Suppose that we have a set of scalars where V = {v 1 , v 2 }

and
v 1 = (1, 2) . We thus note that
v 2 = (3, 5) . For example, suppose we
span(V ) = c1 (1, 2) + c2 (3, 5)

choose and
k1 = 1 , and thus,k2 = 2 . Therefore, .
1(1, 2) + 2(3, 5) = (1, 2) + (6, 10) = (7, 12) (7, 12) span(V )

Note: Consider the zero vector space {0}, i.e., the vector space that contains only the zero vector. We have show that this set is in fact a vector space,
and by convention we say that span{0} = , that is, the the set of all linear combinations of the zero vector is the empty set.

Example 1
Let V = {(2, 3), (1, 2)} . Show whether or not the vector (19, 3) span(V ) .
By the definition of a vector existing within the span of , we must find scalars V c1 and c2

such that:
c1 (2, 3) + c2 (1, 2) = (19, 3) (1)

If we cannot such scalars, then and similarly, if we can find such scalars,
(19, 3) span(V )

then . We thus obtain the following system of linear equations:

(19, 3) span(V )

2c1 + c2 = 19 (2)
3c1 + 2c2 = 3

When we reduce the augment matrix of this system to reduced row echelon form, we
get that:
c1 + 0c2 = 35 (3)
0c1 + c2 = 51

Therefore, we have found a set of scalars c1 , c2 which satisfy our condition, and therefore,
since
(19, 3) span(V ) .
35(2, 3) + 51(1, 2) = (19, 3)

Example 2
Let V = {(1, 4), (3, 5)} . Show whether or not the vector (10, 1) span(V ) .
For the vector S(10, 1) to be in the span if , we must show that V (10, 1) is a linear
 combination of the vectors in so that there exists scalars such that
V c1 , c2

. We thus get the following system of equations:

(10, 1) = c1 (1, 4) + c2 (3, 5)

c1 + 3c2 = 10 (4)
4c1 5c2 = 1

When we reduce this system to RREF, we obtain that:

53 (5)
c1 + 0c2 =
7

41
0c1 + c2 =
7

Therefore there exists scalars c1 and c2 that make (10, 1) a linear combination of the
vectors in so V . (10, 1) span(V )

Example 3
Let V = {(0, a), (0, b)} where a b and a, b R . Show that any vector in the form (c, 0) span(V )

where c 0 .
For (c, 0) span(V ) , (c, 0) must be a linear combination of the vectors in , that is there must V

exist some scalars c1 , c2 such that (c, 0) = c1 (0, a) + c2 (0, b) . However, note that then:
(c, 0) = (0c1 + 0c2 , ac1 + bc2 ) (6)
(c, 0) = (0, ac1 + bc2 )

From this we see that c = 0 . But in our problem, we said that c 0 so (c, 0) span(V ) .

Example 4
Show that if is an so that
A nn Ax = b is consistent for every n1 matrix , then the
b

column vectors of span . A R

n

Let C = {C 1 , C 2 , . . . , C n } be the set of column vectors of A and let be any b n1 vector in R

n
. We
x1

x2
note that Ax = b is consistent, so there exists a vector
x =




such that


xn

x 1 C 1 + x 2 C 2 +. . . +x n C n = b So is a linear combination of the column vectors of

b A so C spans R
n

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