LA(Strang)/EXAM/e-key.

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Linear-Algebra Midterm Exam. (10/9/2019)


 x + y + 3z = 3
1. (10%) Consider solving 
x + 2y + 3z = 4 for x = (x, y, z).
x + y + 3z = 3

(a) Describe the column space of A.

 
3
(b) Determine if Ax = b is solvable by checking if b = 4  is in the column space
3
of A.

(a) Since the first two columns of A are linearly independent and the 3rd column is a multiple of the 1st column,
the column space of A is the plane spanned by the first two columns with normal vector n = (−1, 0, 1) which
is the cross product of the first two columns.
(b) Since 0 ∈ C(A) and b · n = 0, indicating b ∈ C(A), Ax = b is solvable.

 
1 1 0
2. (20%) Let A = 4 6 1  . Use Gaussian elimination to generate an upper trian-
−2 2 0
gular matrix U such that E32 E31 E21 A = U and A = LU .

(a) Give L and U .

 

(b) Use L and U without using A and A−1 to solve Ax = 

4
17  for x.
−4

(a)

z
U
}|
    {
1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0
ℓ21 = 4, ℓ31 = −2
 4 6 1  −→  0 2 1 
ℓ32 = 2
−→  0 2 1 
−2 2 0 0 4 0 0 0 −2

   
1 0 0 1 0 0
E32 = 0 1 1 , L = 4 1 0 
0 −2 1 −2 2 1

(b)
{
Solve Lc = b for c
Solve U x = c for x

So c = (4, 1, 2) and x = (3, 1, −1).

3. (20%) Consider solving Ax = b for x. Suppose the columns of A are linearly

independent.

(a) Is it true that the system is always solvable? If not, give one counterexample.
(b) If A is a square matrix, is it true that the system is always solvable? Why?

   
1 0 1
(a) No. Let A =  0 1  and b =  0 . Obviously b ̸∈ C(A) and therefor Ax = b is not solvable.
1 0 0
(b) Yes. For an n×n matrix A, independent columns of A imply A is invertible, that is, A−1 exists such that
AA−1 = I, yielding that A(A−1 )i = E i for i = 1, . . . , n where (A−1 )i is the ith column of A−1 and E i is
the ith standard basis vector of Rn
∑. Thus every standard basis vector E i can be expressed as a linear combination
of the columns of A, implying b = n i=1 bi E i can be expressed as a linear combination of the columns
LA(Strang)/EXAM/e-key.tex 2

4. (10%) If A is a square n × n matrix and AB = I, show A is invertible.

Let B i and E i denote the ith column of B and I, respectively. Since AB = I, we have AB i = E i for i = 1, . . . , n,
implying that n columns of A can span Rn and therefore columns of A are linearly independent. Thus A is invertible.

5. (20%) Suppose S is an invertible symmetric matrix. Let S −1 denote the inverse

of S. Let S T denote the transpose of S. Let B denote the inverse of S T .

(a) Give B in terms of S −1 ? Show B is the inverse of S T .

(b) Show S −1 is symmetric.

(a) B = (S −1 )T .Since B is square and B(S T ) = (S −1 )T (S T ) = (SS −1 )T = I T = I, B is the inverse of S T .

( )T
(b) To show S −1 is symmetric needs to show S −1 = S −1 .
( −1 )T ( T )−1 ( )T
Since S is the inverse of S , we have S −1 = (S T )−1 = S −1

6. (10%)

(a) If B is an orthogonal matrix, prove B T is an orthogonal matrix.

(b) Give one 3×3 orthogonal matrix Q (other than I and permutation matrices).
How can you quickly tell your QT is also an orthogonal matrix?

(a) Need to prove AAT = I (or AT A = I).

( T ) (( T ))T
(b) Know: BB T = I (and B T B = I). Need to prove B B = I.
( T ) (( T ))T ( )
LHS = B B = B T B = I = RHS

(c)
 
cos θ − sin θ 0
Q =  sin θ cos θ 0 
0 0 1

and since the rows of Q are orthogonal vectors with unit lengths, QT is also an orthogonal matrix.

7. (10%) Let C = AB.

(a) How can you express column 3 of C as a linear combination?

(b) Elimination process transforms A to U by EA = U . Show that if “column 3
of A = (2× column 1 of A) + (3× column 2 of A)” then “column 3 of U = (2×
column 1 of U ) + (3× column 2 of U )”.

(a) The 3rd column of C is the linear combination of the columns of A with the 3rd column of B as the coefficients.
(b) Since U = EA, letting E i be the ith column of E,

∑
n
column 3 of U = ai3 E i
i=1
∑n
= (2ai1 + 3ai2 )E i
i=1
∑
n ∑
n
= 2 ai1 E i + 3 ai2 E i
i=1 i=1
= (2 × column 1 of U ) + (3 × column 2 of U )