MATH 203 - LINEAR ALGEBRA

Linear Independence
&
Introduction to Linear Transformations
LINEAR INDEPENDENCE

An indexed set of vectors in is said

to be linearly independent if the vector equation

has only the trivial solution.

The set is said to be linearly dependent
if there exist weights , not all zero, such that
.

The last equation is called a linear dependence

relation among when the weights are not
all zero.
LINEAR INDEPENDENCE

An indexed set is linearly dependent if and only if it is

not linearly independent.
LINEAR INDEPENDENCE

Example 1: Let

, , and .

a. Determine if the set is linearly

independent.
b. If possible, find a linear dependence relation among
, , and .
LINEAR INDEPENDENCE AND MATRIX COLUMNS

Suppose that we begin with a matrix

instead of a set of vectors.

The matrix equation can be written as

+ .

Each linear dependence relation among the columns of

corresponds to a nontrivial solution of .

The columns of are linearly independent if and only if

the equation has only the trivial solution.
SETS OF ONE OR TWO VECTORS

A set containing only one vector – say, – is linearly

independent if and only if is not the zero vector.

This is because the vectos equation has only the

trivial solution when .

The zero vector is linearly dependent because

has many nontrivial solutions.
SETS OF ONE OR TWO VECTORS

A set of two vectors is linearly dependent if at

least one of the vectors is a multiple of the other.

The set is linearly independent if and only if neither of

the vectors is a multiple of the other.
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Theorem 7: Characterization of Linearly Dependent Sets

An indexed set 𝑆 𝒗 , … , 𝒗 of two or more vectors is linearly

dependent if and only if at least one of the vectors in 𝑆 is a linear
combination of the others. In fact, if 𝑆 is linearly dependent and
𝒗 𝟎, then some 𝒗 (with 𝑗 1) is a linear combination of the
preceding vectors 𝒗 , … , 𝒗 .
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Example 2: Find the value(s) of for which the vectors

, ,

are linearly dependent.

SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Theorem 7 does not say that every vector in a linearly

dependent set is a linear combination of the preceding
vectors.

A vector in a linearly dependent set may fail to be a

linear combination of the other vectors.
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Example 3: Let

, , , and .

a. Are the sets , , , , and

each linearly independent? Why?
b. Is a linear combination of , , and ?
c. Is linearly dependent?
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Theorem 8

If a set contains more vectors than there are entries in each vector,
then the set is linearly dependent. That is, any set 𝒗 , … , 𝒗 in
ℝ is linearly dependent if 𝑝 𝑛.

Theorem 9

If a set 𝑆 𝒗 , … , 𝒗 in ℝ contains the zero vector, then the

set is linearly dependent.
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Example 4: Let

, , , and .

Is linearly dependent?
SETS OF TWO OR MORE VECTORS

Example 5: Determine by inspection whether the

vectors in parts (a) and (b) are linearly independent.
Justify your answers.

a. , , ,

b. , ,
TRANSFORMATIONS

A transformation (or function or mapping) from

to is a rule that assigns to each vector in a
vector in . That is,
Domain Codomain

Image of 𝒙
(Under the action of 𝑇)

The set of all images is called the range of .

MATRIX TRANSFORMATIONS

For each in , is computed as , where is

an matrix. For simplicity, we denote such a
matrix transformation by .

Note that, the domain of is when has columns

and the codomain of is when each column of
has entries.

Note also that, the range of is the set of all linear

combinations of the columns of because each image
is of the form .
MATRIX TRANSFORMATIONS

Example 6: Let

, , , and .

Define a transformation by , so
that

.
MATRIX TRANSFORMATIONS

a. Find , the image of under the transformation

.

b. Find an in whose image under is .

c. Is there more than one whose image under is ?

d. Determine if is in the range of the transformation

.
MATRIX TRANSFORMATIONS

Example 7: With defined by , find a

vector whose image under is and determine
whether is unique, where

and .
LINEAR TRANSFORMATIONS

A transformation (or mapping) is linear if:

i. for all , in the
domain of and
ii. for all scalars and all in the
domain of .

Linear transformations preserve the operations of vector

addition and scalar multiplication.

These two properties lead to the following useful facts:

LINEAR TRANSFORMATIONS

If is a linear transformation, then .

With the help of the use of i. and ii. we can obtain

.

If a transformation satisfies for all , , , and , it

must be linear. (Set 𝑐 𝑑 1 for preservation of addition and
𝑑 0 for preservation of scalar multiplication)

Repeated applications of produces the superposition

principle:
.
LINEAR TRANSFORMATIONS

Let be the signals that go into a system and

the responses of that system to the
signals.

The system satisfies the superposition principle

if, whenever an input is expressed as a linear

combination of such signals, the system’s response is
the same linear combination of the responses to the
individual signals.