HOMEWORK 5

PAUL BRESSLER

1. Miscelaneous problems
1.1. Suppose that V isSa vector space and A and B are subspaces of
V . Show that Span(A B) = A + B.
Suggestion: recall that A+B is the image of A×B under the addition
map + : V × V → V ; it was shown in HW1 that that the addition map
is linear; thus, if A × B is a subspace of V × V it follows that A + B
is a subspace of V . SinceSA + B contains both A and B (why?) it
follows that that Span(A B) is contained in A + B (by definition S of
Span, i.e. minimality); the other inclusion follows since Span(A B)
is a vector space (how?).

1.2. Suppose that V is a vector space and S and T are non-empty

subsets of V .
S
(1) Show that Span(S T ) = T Span(S) + Span(T ). T
(2) Give an example where S T = ∅ but Span(S) Span(T ) =
(0).

1.3. Suppose that V and W are vector spaces and S ⊆ V is a subset.

Show that the subset
{f : V → W | f |S = 0} ⊆ Hom(V, W )
is a subspace. Show that
{f : V → W | f |S = 0} = {f : V → W | f |Span(S) = 0}
Suggestion: it may be useful to remember that the kernel of a linear
map is a subspace.

1.4. Suppose that V is a vector space, S is a set and φ : V → S is a

surjective map of sets. Show that there is at most one structure of a
vector space on S such that the map φ is linear with respect to that
structure. (”At most one” means that there may be none at all, but,
if there are any, then they coincide.)
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1.5. Suppose that V and W are vector spaces, φ : V → W a linear

map. Show that φ is surjective if and only if for any vector space U
the map φ∗ : Hom(W, U ) → Hom(V, U ) defined by φ∗ (f ) = f ◦ φ is
injective.
Suggestion: we showed in class that a map φ : V → W is surjective
if and only if there exists a map ψ : W → V such that φ ◦ ψ = IdW ;
you might find this useful.

1.6. Suppose that V is a vector space and A is a subspace of V . Recall

that the subspace A determines an equivalence relation on the set V ,
denoted ∼A , defined by x ∼A y if and only if x − y ∈ A. The set of
equivalence classes of ∼A is denoted V /A.
Show that there exists a unique structure of a vector space on V /A
such that the quotient map V → V /A is linear.
Suggestion: uniqueness is a consequence of 1.4.

1.7. A generalization of 1.3. Suppose that V and W are vector

spaces and S ⊆ V is a subset and A ⊆ W is a subspace. Show that
the subset
{f : V → W | f (S) ⊆ A} ⊆ Hom(V, W )
is a subspace. Show that
{f : V → W | f (S) ⊆ A} = {f : V → W | f (Span(S)) ⊆ A}
Suggestion: it seems that this problem may be reduced easily to the
particular case of 1.3 (A = (0)) by using 1.5 and showing that f (S) ⊆ A
if and only if q ◦ f |S = 0, where q : V → V /A denotes the projection to
the quotient.

1.8. Suppose that S and T are sets, S is finite, cardinality of T is larger

than that of S (including the possibility that T is infinite), f : RhT i →
RhSi is a linear map. Show that ker(f ) 6= (0).
Suggestion:
(1) note that ker(f ) 6= (0) if and only if f (T ) is dependent
(2) show that there is a subset T 0 ⊆ T such that f |T 0 : T 0 → f (T ) is
a bijection and ker(f ) 6= (0) if and only if ker(f |RhT 0 i ) 6= (0), in
other words we may assume from the beginning that f |T : T →
RhSi is one-to-one
(3) in this way the problem reduces to the following: if V is a vector
space spanned by a finite subset S and T ⊆ V with cardinality
of T is larger than that of S (including the possibility that T is
infinite), then T is dependent.
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(4) show that there exists a finite subset T 0 ⊆ T such that T is

dependent if and only if T 0 is dependent; in other words, one
may assume from the beginning that T is finite.
(5) we know that the spanning set S contains a basis; since cardi-
nality of the latter is no greater than that of S we may assume
the S is a basis
(6) the problem therefore reduces to the following: suppose that T
is a finite subset of Rn of cardinality greater than n; then T is
dependent
(7) the latter statement follows (how?) from Linear Algebra I
(how?).
Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad de Los Andes
E-mail address: paul.bressler@gmail.com