Quiz 9; Wednesday, October 25

MATH 110 with Professor Stankova

Section 114; 5-6 pm
GSI: Saad Qadeer

Solutions

You have 10 minutes to complete the quiz. Calculators are not permitted. Please include
all relevant calculations and explanations (unless stated otherwise).

1. (12 points) Let T be a linear operator on a finite-dimensional vector space V , and let
W1 be the T -cyclic subspace generated by some vector v ∈ V . For some w ∈ W1 , let
W2 be the T -cyclic subspace generated by w. Prove that W2 ⊆ W1 .

We claim that T k (w) ∈ W1 for all k ≥ 0. For k = 0, this is true as w ∈ W1 . Suppose

next that T k−1 (w) ∈ W1 . As any T -cyclic subspace is also T -invariant, we infer that
W1 is T -invariant and hence

T k (w) = T (T k−1 (w)) ∈ W1 .

This proves that W2 = span({w, T (w), T 2 (w), . . .}) ⊆ W1 .

1
2. (1 + 1 + 1 points) Mark each statement as True or False. You do not need to show
your work but a blank answer is worth 0 points and an incorrect answer is worth −1
point.

(a) If W1 and W2 are T -invariant subspaces, so is W1 + W2 .

True: w1 + w2 ∈ W1 + W2 ⇒ T (w1 + w2 ) = T (w1 ) + T (w2 ) ∈ W1 + W2 as the Wi

are T -invariant.
(b) If T is diagonalizable then every invariant subspace of T is 1-dimensional.

False: V is always T -invariant so for dim(V ) > 1, this statement is false.

(c) For any v ∈ V , the T -cyclic subspace generated by v is the same as the T -cyclic
subspace generated by T (v).

False: Let V = R2 and let T be the projection onto the x-axis, v = (0, 1). Then,
T (v) = (0, 0) so the T -cyclic subspace it generates is not the same as the T -cyclic
subspace generated by v.