MATH 221 S2021 T1 Written Assignment 4

Wednesday, June 9 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time

These assignments give you the chance to more fully demonstrate your understanding of the course ma-
terial. You must show all of your work to get full marks. Cite any theorems or results you use from the
course notes. Be sure to write your answers in the clearest way possible showing logical order, and writing
out explanations where necessary. The marker should not have to “guess” what you are doing. This is an
assignment you have a week to do so, for full marks, it should be perfect.

You are welcome to work with other students or ask for help, but you must submit your own solutions.
If you get work extensively with someone else or get substantial help from another source, please indicate
this on your assignment; failure to acknowledge them may be considered plagiarism.

Copying someone else’s solution, or getting a solution from an online source such as
chegg.com (whether directly or indirectly), is considered plagiarism.

You are permitted the use of software to row reduce matrices.

1. (a) Let A an B be n × k matrices and let C be k × m. Use the definition of matrix multiplication to
show that (A + B)C = AC + BC.
(b) Let A be n × n and let B be n × m. Suppose that the product AB has a column of zeroes. Is it
possible that the matrix equation A~x = ~b has a solution for all ~b ∈ Rm . Justify your answer.

2. Let A, B, C, D, X, and D + BX be n × n matrices with A, B, D, X, and D + BX invertible. Suppose

that these matrices satisfy the following equation.

X(D + BX)−1 = A−1 C T

(a) Explain why C is invertible.

(b) Solve the equation for X.
(c) Bonus: Show that X = (C −1 A − B)−1 D. If you need to argue why a certain matrix is invertible,
then do so. If you get this answer for part b) then I will give you credit for this question.

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  
−2 −5 1 3 " #
 1 2 2 3  −2 3 1 3
3. Let A =  ,B = .
 
 0 0 −5 1  1 −1 −1 0
3 0 6 3
 
−3
 −3 
(a) Determine if the vector ~b =   is in Col(A).
 
 0 
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(b) Determine if ~b is in Col(B) using no row reduction.
(c) Determine if ~b is in Null(B).
(d) Find bases for Col(A) and Null(A).
(e) How many vectors are in Null(A)? What about Col(A)? Justify your answers.

4. Let ~v1 , ~v2 , ~v3 ∈ R4 .

(a) Let S = span {~v1 , ~v2 }. Determine all possible dimensions for S.
(b) Suppose that {~v1 , ~v2 } are linearly independent. Is it necessarily true that ~v1 , ~v2 are a basis for S?
(c) Suppose that {~v1 , ~v2 , ~v3 } are linearly independent. Explain why ~v3 is not in S.

 
−2 −1 3 0
5. Let A =  1 1 h −1  . Determine all values of h such that dim(Null(A)) = 1.
 

3 3 2 −3

Hint. You only need to do 3 operations to get to a form that will give you the answer.

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6. Let A = [ ~a1 ~a2 ~a3 ~a4 ~a5 ] where
 each  column of A is in R and at least one column of A is non-zero.
−1
 2 
 

Suppose that the vector ~b = 

 
 1  is in Null(A).

 3 
 
4

(a) Is ~a3 a linear combination of the other columns of A? Explain how you know. If it is, write it as
one.
(b) Determine all possible values for rank(A) and the corresponding values for dim(Null(A)). Justify
your answer using the Rank-Nullity Theorem.

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7. (a) Let A be an 8 × 5 matrix. Explain why rank(A) 6= 7.
(b) Let A be an 8 × 5 matrix. If rank(A) = 5, how many solutions does A~x = ~0 have? Why?
(c) Let A be a 6 × 5 matrix with rank(A) = 5. Is Col(A) = R5 ? Explain your answer.
(d) Let A be an m × n matrix with m ≥ n and suppose that rank(A) < n. Explain why the RREF
of A has at least one row of all zeroes.
(e) Let A be a 4 × 5 matrix. Explain why rank(A) < 5.

8. Bonus.

(a) Let F : Rn → Rk be a linear transformation. Show, from definition, that the range of F is a
subspace of Rn .
(b) Let F : Rn → Rk be a linear transformation with standard matrix A. Show that the range of F
is equal to Col(A) and use this to deduce that the range of F is a subspace of Rn .