MATH1111/2008-09/Tutorial I Solution 1

Tutorial I Suggested Solution

1. This question concerns how to prove or disprove a statement. We start with common sense.
For statments (a) and (b) below, think about what you need to do if you want to prove it. Also,
think about how you can disprove it.
(a) All apples are sweet.
(b) Some apples are sweet.
Prove or disprove the following.
(i) All matrices X satisfying X
2
= 0 are zero matrices.
(ii) Some square matrices B satisfying B
2
I = 0 are singular.
(iii) If A is a square matrix such that A
2
I = 0, then there exists a nonzero vector x such that
Ax = x or Ax = x.
Ans.
(a) To prove All apples are sweet, you must nd a way to check through all apples and verify
that all of them are sweet.
To disprove it, it is in principle simple. Once you nd an apple which is not sweet, then
you are done. This approach is disproof by counterexample.
(b) To prove Some apples are sweet, now we can simply prove it by nding a sweet apple.
(Just one is enough to verify the statement! My goal is actually to explain the dierence
between for all and for some. So dont argue that we need to nd at least two sweet
apples from the plural form in the statement.)
To disprove it, it is equivalent to prove All apples are NOT sweet. So we need to look
for a method to check all.
(i) False. We give a counterexample to justify our answer below.
Counterexample. Let X =
_
0 1
0 0
_
. Then X is NOT a zero matrix but X
2
= 0.
(ii) False. We prove the negation of the statement below.
Claim: If B
2
I = 0, then B must be nonsingular.
Proof. From B
2
I = 0, we have
BB = I.
i.e. B is the inverse of B. The existence of its inverse means that B is nonsingular.
MATH1111/2008-09/Tutorial I Solution 2
(iii) True. We give a proof below.
As 0 = A
2
I = (AI)(A+I), (det(AI))(det(A+I)) = 0. Thus, at least one of AI
or A + I is singular. By Theorem 1.4.2, the equation (A I)x = 0 or (A + I)x = 0 has a
nontrivial solution x
0
. Thus, Ax
0
= x
0
or Ax
0
= x
0
.
2. Let
a
1
=
_
_
1
2
5
_
_
, a
2
=
_
_
2
5
6
_
_
, b =
_
_
7
4
3
_
_
.
Determine whether b is a linear combination of a
1
and a
2
. Give it a geometrical interpretation.
Ans. Want to nd scalars and so that a
1
+a
2
= b. In other words,

_
_
1
2
5
_
_
+
_
_
2
5
6
_
_
=
_
_
7
4
3
_
_
.
It can be expressed as a system of linear equation
_
_
_
+ 2 = 7
2 + 5 = 4
5 + 6 = 3
Its augmented matrix is
_
_
1 2 7
2 5 4
5 6 3
_
_
which reduces via elementary row operations to
_
_
1 0 3
0 1 2
0 0 0
_
_
i.e. = 3 and = 2, or b = 3a
1
+ 2a
2
is a linear combination of a
i
, i = 1, 2.
View a
i
as vectors (arrows) in R
3
, the sum of them after a suitable scaling yields the vector b.
MATH1111/2008-09/Tutorial I Solution 3
3. Let A be a nonsingular matrix. Show that A
T
is also nonsingular and nd the inverse of A
T
.
Ans. Since A is nonsingular, the inverse of A exists. Now consider the transpose of A
1
, i.e.
the matrix (A
1
)
T
. Recall (AB)
T
= B
T
A
T
, we see that
A
T
(A
1
)
T
= (A
1
A)
T
= I
T
= I,
where I is the identity matrix of the same order as A; and
(A
1
)
T
A
T
= (AA
1
)
T
= I
T
= I.
This implies that A
T
is invertible and (A
1
)
T
is the inverse of A.
In other words, (A
T
)
1
= (A
1
)
T
when well-dened.
4. (Optional) Let A =
_
P X
0 p
_
and B =
_
Q Y
0 q
_
where P and Q are of dimension 2 2, X and
Y are of dimension of 2 1 and p and q are real numbers.
(a) Show that
AB =
_
PQ PY +qX
0 pq
_
.
(b) Evaluate the det(AB) in terms of P, Q, p, q.
(c) Is AB =
_
PQ PY +qX
0 pq
_
if both p and q are now 2 2 matrices (and so are the sizes of
P, Q, X, Y )? If no, what is the answer?
Ans.
(a) Write A =
_
_
p
11
p
12
x
1
p
21
p
22
x
2
0 0 p
_
_
and B =
_
_
q
11
q
12
y
1
q
21
q
22
y
2
0 0 q
_
_
, then
AB =
_
_
p
11
p
12
x
1
p
21
p
22
x
2
0 0 p
_
_
_
_
q
11
q
12
y
1
q
21
q
22
y
2
0 0 q
_
_
=
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
2

r=1
p
1r
q
r1
2

r=1
p
1r
q
r2
p
11
y
1
+p
12
y
2
+qx
1
2

r=1
p
2r
q
r1
2

r=1
p
2r
q
r2
p
21
y
1
+p
22
y
2
+qx
2
0 0 pq
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
.
MATH1111/2008-09/Tutorial I Solution 4
Observe that PQ =
_
_
_
_
_
_
2

r=1
p
1r
q
r1
2

r=1
p
1r
q
r2
2

r=1
p
2r
q
r1
2

r=1
p
2r
q
r2
_
_
_
_
_
_
and
_
p
11
y
1
+p
12
y
2
+qx
1
p
21
y
1
+p
22
y
2
+qx
2
_
=
_
p
11
y
1
+p
12
y
2
p
21
y
1
+p
22
y
2
_
+q
_
x
1
x
2
_
=
_
p
11
p
12
p
21
p
22
__
y
1
y
2
_
+q
_
x
1
x
2
_
= PY +qX.
This completes our proof.
(b) Expanding along the last row,
det(AB) = pq (1)
3+3
det(PQ) = pq det(P) det(Q).
Alternatively, one may prove in this way:
det(AB) = det(A) det(B) = p det(P) q det(Q)
where, as above, the last equality follows by expanding along the last row.
(c) When p, q are 2 2 matrices, the formula is incorrect. Below yields a counterexample:
P = Q =
_
1 0
0 1
_
, X = Y =
_
0 1
0 0
_
, p =
_
0 0
0 0
_
, q =
_
0 0
1 0
_
.
The correct formula is AB =
_
PQ PY +Xq
0 pq
_
.