Section 2.1 Definition and examples
Let and be vector spaces. At their most basic, all vector spaces are sets. Given any two sets, we can consider functions from one to the other. The functions of interest in linear algebra are those that respect the vector space structure of the sets.
The properties of a linear transformation tell us that a linear map preserves the operations of addition and scalar multiplication. (When the domain and codomain are different vector spaces, we might say that intertwines the operations of the two vector spaces.) In particular, any linear transformation must preserve the zero vector, and respect linear combinations.
Theorem 2.1.2.
Strategy.
For the first part, remember that old trick we’ve used a couple of times before: What happens if you apply to both sides of this equation?
For the second part, note that the addition property of a linear transformation looks an awful lot like a distributive property, and we can distribute over a sum of three or more vectors using the associative property. You’ll want to deal with the addition first, and then the scalar multiplication.
Proof.
- Since
we haveAdding to both sides of the above gives us - The addition property of a linear transformation can be extended to sums of three or more vectors using associativity. Therefore, we havewhere the second line follows from the scalar multiplication property.
Remark 2.1.3.
Technically, we skipped over some details in the above proof: how exactly, is associativity being applied? It turns out there’s actually a proof by induction lurking in the background!
For an abitrary number of vectors we can assume that distribution over addition works for vectors, and then use associativity to write
The right-hand side is technically a sum of two vectors, so we can apply the definition of a linear transformation directly, and then apply our induction hypothesis to
Example 2.1.4.
is a linear transformation. (This follows immediately from properties of matrix multiplication.)
Let denote the standard basis of (See Example 1.7.6.) Recall (or convince yourself, with a couple of examples) that is equal to the th column of Thus, if we know the value of a linear transformation on each basis vector, we can immediately determine the matrix such that
Moreover, if two linear transformations agree on a basis, they must be equal. Given any we can write uniquely as a linear combination
Let’s look at some other examples of linear transformations.
- For any vector spaces
we can define the zero transformation by for all - On any vector space
we have the identity transformation defined by for all -
Let
be the space of all functions For any we have the evaluation map defined byTo see that this is linear, note that where denotes the zero function; for anyand for any scalarNote that the evaluation map can similarly be defined as a linear transformation on any vector space of polynomials. - On the vector space
of all continuous functions on we have the integration map defined by The fact that this is a linear map follows from properties of integrals proved in a calculus class. - On the vector space
of continuously differentiable functions on we have the differentiation map defined by Again, linearity follows from properties of the derivative. - Let
denote the set of sequences of real numbers, with term-by-term addition and scalar multiplication. The shift operatorsare both linear. - On the space
of matrices, the trace defines a linear map and the transpose defines a linear map The determinant and inverse operations on are not linear.
Exercise 2.1.5.
- The function
given by - Since
this can’t be a linear transformation. - The function
given by - This looks unusual, but it’s linear! You can check that
and - The function
given by - Although this function preserves the zero vector, it doesn’t preserve addition or scalar multiplication. For example,
but - The function
given by - Multiplication by
might feel non-linear, but remember that is not a “variable” as far as the transformation is concerned! It’s more of a placeholder. Try checking the definition directly. - The function
given by - Remember that
in general! - An exponential function that’s linear? Seems impossible, but remember that “addition”
in is really multiplication, so and similarly,
Which of the following are linear transformations?
Hint.
Usually, you can expect a linear transformation to involve homogeneous linear expressions. Things like products, powers, and added constants are usually clues that something is nonlinear.
For finite-dimensional vector spaces, it is often convenient to work in terms of a basis. The properties of a linear transformation tell us that we can completely define any linear transformation by giving its values on a basis. In fact, it’s enough to know the value of a transformation on a spanning set. The argument given in Example 2.1.4 can be applied to any linear transformation, to obtain the following result.
Theorem 2.1.6.
Caution: If the above spanning set is not also independent, then we can’t just define the values however we want. For example, suppose we want to define and we set If and then we must have Why? Because and if is to be linear, then we have to have
Remark 2.1.7.
If for some reason we already know that our transformation is linear, we might still be concerned about the fact that if a spanning set is not independent, there will be more than one way to express a vector as linear combination of vectors in that set. If we define by giving its values on a spanning set, will it be well-defined? (That is, could we get two different values for by expressing in terms of the spanning set in two different ways?) Suppose that we have scalars such that
We then have
Of course, we can avoid all of this unpleasantness by using a basis to define a transformation. Given a basis for a vector space we can define a transformation by setting for some choice of vectors and defining
Because each vector can be written uniquely in terms of a basis, we know that our transformation is well-defined.
The next theorem seems like an obvious consequence of the above, and indeed, one might wonder where the assumption of a basis is needed. The distinction here is that the vectors are chosen in advance, and then we define by setting rather than simply defining each as
Theorem 2.1.8.
With the basic theory out of the way, let’s look at a few basic examples.
Example 2.1.9.
Solution.
Since we know the value of on the standard basis, we can use properties of linear transformations to immediately obtain the answer:
Example 2.1.10.
Solution.
At first, this example looks the same as the one above, and to some extent, it is. The difference is that this time, we’re given the values of on a basis that is not the standard one. This means we first have to do some work to determine how to write the given vector in terms of the given basis.
Suppose we have for scalars This is equivalent to the matrix equation
Solving (perhaps using the code cell below), we get
xxxxxxxxxx
from sympy import Matrix,init_printing
init_printing()
A = Matrix(2,2,[3,2,1,-5])
B = Matrix(2,1,[4,3])
(A**-1)*B
Therefore,
Exercise 2.1.11.
Example 2.1.12.
Solution.
Since forms a basis of (the vectors are not parallel and there are two of them), it suffices to determine how to write a general vector in terms of this basis. Suppose
for a general element This is equivalent to the matrix equation which we can solve as
xxxxxxxxxx
from sympy import Matrix, init_printing, symbols
init_printing()
a, b = symbols('a b', real = True, constant = True)
A = Matrix(2,2,[1,-1,2,1])
B = Matrix(2,1,[a,b])
(A**-1)*B
This gives us the result
Thus,
We conclude that
Exercises Exercises
1.
Let be a linear transformation. Rearrange the blocks below to create a proof of the following statement:
For any vectors if is linearly independent in then is linearly independent in
Hint.
This is mostly a matter of using Theorem 2.1.2, but it’s important to get the logic correct. We have a conditional statement of the form where both (“the set is independent”) and (“the set is independent”) are themselves conditional statements.
The overall structure therefore looks like A direct proof should be structured as follows:
- Assume the main hypothesis:
- Assume the “sub”-hypothesis
- Figure out how to show that
(This is the “apply to both sides” step.) - If we know
and we’ve assumed we know - Realize that
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