MATH 203 - LINEAR ALGEBRA

Vector Equations
&
The Matrix Equation
VECTOR EQUATIONS
𝟐
Vectors in

A matrix with only one column is called a column

vector, or simply a vector. An example of a vector with
two entries is
,
where and are any real numbers.

The set of all vectors with two entries is denoted by

(read “r-two”), where stands for the real numbers that
appear as entries in the vector and the exponent 2
indicates that each vector contains two entries.
VECTOR EQUATIONS

Two vectors in are equal if and only if their

corresponding entries are equal.

Given two vectors and in , their sum is the

vector obtained by adding corresponding entries
of and .

Given a vector and a real number , the scalar

multiple of by is the vector obtained by
multiplying each entry in by .
VECTOR EQUATIONS

Example 1: Given and , find ,

, .

Scalar multiplication
Solution:
, , and

Vector addition
GEOMETRIC DESCRIPTIONS OF

Consider a rectangular coordinate system in the plane.

Because each point in the plane is determined by an
ordered pair of numbers, we can identify a geometric
point with the colum vector . So we may
regard as the set of all points in the plane.

If and in are represented as points in the plane,

then corresponds to the fourth vertex of the
parallelogram whose other vertices are , , and .
VECTORS IN AND

Vectors in are column matrices with three

entries. They are represented geometrically by points in
a three-dimensional coordinate space, with arrows from
the origin sometimes included for visual clarity.

If is a positive integer, (read “r-n”) denotes the

collection of all lists (or ordered -tuples) of real
numbers, usually written as column matrices,
such as

.
ALGEBRAIC PROPERTIES OF

The vector who entries are all zero is called the zero
vector and is denoted by .

For all , , and in and all scalar and ,

i. 𝒖 𝒗 𝒗 𝒖 v. 𝑐 𝒖 𝒗 𝑐𝒖 𝑐𝒗
ii. 𝒖 𝒗 𝒘 𝒖 𝒗 𝒘 vi. 𝑐 𝑑 𝒖 𝑐𝒖 𝑑𝒖
iii. 𝒖 𝟎 𝟎 𝒖 𝒖 vii. 𝑐 𝑑𝒖 𝑐𝑑 𝒖
iv. 𝒖 𝒖 𝒖 𝒖 𝟎, vii. 𝑐 𝑑𝒖 𝑐𝑑 𝒖
where 𝒖 denotes 1 𝒖 viii. 1𝒖 𝒖
LINEAR COMBINATIONS

Given vectors in and scalars

, the vector defined by

is called a linear combination of with

weights .

The weights can be any real numbers, including .

LINEAR COMBINATIONS

Example 2: Let , , and .

Determine whether can be generated (or written) as a

linear combination of and . In other words,
determine whether weights and exist such that
.

That is, if the vector equation has a

solution, find it.
LINEAR COMBINATIONS

Solution: Use the definitions of scalar multiplication

and vector addition to rewrite the vector equation

𝒂 𝒂 𝒃

which is the same as

.
LINEAR COMBINATIONS

To solve this system, row reduce the augmented matrix

of the system as follows:

The solution is and . Hence is a linear

combination of and with weights and
. That is,

.
LINEAR COMBINATIONS

A vector equation

has the same solution set as the linear system whos

augmented matrix is
.

Hence, can be generated by a linear combination of

if and only if there exists a solution to the
linear system corresponding to
.
LINEAR COMBINATIONS

If are in , then the set of all linear

combinations of is denoted by
and is called the subset of 𝒏
spanned (or generated) by . That is,
is the collection of all vectors that
can be written in the form

with scalars.
A GEOMETRIC DESCRIPTION OF

Let be a nonzero vector in . Then is the

set of all scalar multiples of , which is the set of points
on the line in through and .
A GEOMETRIC DESCRIPTION OF

Let and be nonzero vectors in , with not a

multiple of . Then is the plane in that
contains , , and . In particular, contains
the line in through and and the line through
and .
MATRIX EQUATION

If is an matrix, with columns and

if is in , then the product of and , denoted by
, is the linear combination of the columns of using
the corresponding entries in as weights. That is,

Note that is defined only if the number of columns

of equals the number of entries in .
MATRIX EQUATION

Example 3: For , , and in , write the linear

combination as a matrix times a
vector.

Solution: Place , , and into the columns of a

matrix and place the weights , , and into a
vector . That is,

.
MATRIX EQUATION

Example 4: Let and .

Suppose that is the set of all linear combinations of

the column of . Is in ?
MATRIX EQUATION

We have learned how to write a system of linear

equations as a vector equation involving a linear
combination of vectors.
MATRIX EQUATION

For example, the system

can be written as a vector equation:

and as a matrix equation :

since the linear combination on the left side is a matrix

times a vector.
MATRIX EQUATION

Theorem 3

If 𝐴 is an 𝑚 𝑛 matrix, with columns 𝒂 , 𝒂 , … , 𝒂 and if 𝒃 is in

ℝ , then the matrix equation
𝐴𝒙 𝒃
has the same solution set as the vector equation
𝑥 𝒂 𝑥 𝒂 ⋯ 𝑥 𝒂 𝒃,
which has the same solution set as the system of linear equations
whose augmented matrix is
𝒂 𝒂 … 𝒂 𝒃.

The equation 𝐴𝒙 𝒃 has a solution if and only if 𝒃 is a linear

combination of the columns of 𝐴.
EXISTENCE OF SOLUTIONS

Theorem 4

Let 𝐴 be an 𝑚 𝑛 matrix. Then the following statements are

logically equivalent. That is, for a particular 𝐴, either they are all
true statements or they are all false.
a. For each 𝒃 in ℝ , the equation 𝐴𝒙 𝒃 has a solution.
b. Each 𝒃 in ℝ is a linear combination of the columns of
𝐴.
c. The columns of 𝐴 span ℝ .
d. 𝐴 has a pivot position in every row.
MATRIX EQUATION

Example 5: Compute , where

and .

Solution: From the definition,

COMPUTATION OF

Solution: From the definition,

2 3 4 𝑥
𝐴𝒙 1 5 3 𝑥
6 2 8 𝑥
2 3 4
𝑥 1 𝑥 5 𝑥 3
6 2 8
2𝑥 3𝑥 4𝑥
𝑥 5𝑥 3𝑥
6𝑥 2𝑥 8𝑥
2𝑥 3𝑥 4𝑥
𝑥 5𝑥 3𝑥 .
6𝑥 2𝑥 8𝑥
COMPUTATION OF

The first entry in the product is a sum of products

(sometimes called a dot product), using the first row of
and the entries in . That is,

.
COMPUTATION OF

Similarly, the second entry in can be calculated by

multiplying the entries in the second row of by the
corresponding entries in and then summing the
resulting products,

.
COMPUTATION OF

Likewise, the third entry in can be calculated from

the third row of and the entries in .

If the product is defined, then the th entry in is

the sum of the products of corresponding entries from
row of and from the vector .
COMPUTATION OF

The matrix with ’s on the diagonal and ’s elsewhere

is called an identity matrix and is denoted by .

3 3 identity matrix
PROPERTIES OF THE MATRIX-VECTOR PRODUCT

Theorem 5

If 𝐴 is an 𝑚 𝑛 matrix, 𝒖 and 𝒗 are vectors in ℝ and 𝑐 is a

scalar, then
i. 𝐴 𝒖 𝒗 𝐴𝒖 𝐴𝒗
ii. 𝐴 𝑐𝒖 𝑐 𝐴𝒖