Linear Independence and Span

Span
We have seen in the last discussion that the span of vectors v1, v2, ... , vn is the set of linear
combinations

c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + cnvn

and that this is a vector space.

We now take this idea further. If V is a vector space and S = {v1, v2, ... , vn) is a subset of V, then is
Span(S) equal to V?

Definition

Let V be a vector space and let S = {v1, v2, ... , vn) be a subset of V. We say that S spans
V if every vector v in V can be written as a linear combination of vectors in S.

v = c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + cnvn

Example

Show that the set

S = {(0,1,1), (1,0,1), (1,1,0)}

spans R3 and write the vector (2,4,8) as a linear combination of vectors in S.

Solution

A vector in R3 has the form

v = (x, y, z)

Hence we need to show that every such v can be written as

(x,y,z) = c1(0, 1, 1) + c2(1, 0, 1) + c3(1, 1, 0)

:
 = (c2 + c3, c1 + c3, c1 + c2)

This corresponds to the system of equations

c2 + c3 = x
c1 + c3 = y
c1 + c2 = z

which can be written in matrix form

We can write this as

Ac = b

Notice that

det(A) = 2
Hence A is nonsingular and

c = A-1b
So that a nontrivial solution exists. To write (2,4,8) as a linear combination of vectors in S, we find
that

so that

We have
:
 (2,4,8) = 5(0,1,1) + 3(1,0,1) + (-1)(1,1,0)

Example

Show that if

v1 = t + 2 and v2 = t2 + 1

and S = {v1, v2}

then

S does not span P2

Solution

A general element of P2 is of the form

v = at2 + bt + c

We set

v = c1v1 + c2v2

or

at2 + bt + c = c1(t + 2) + c2(t2 + 1) = c2t2 + c1t + c1 + c2

Equating coefficients gives

a = c2
b = c1
c = c1 + c2

Notice that if

a = 1 b = 1 c = 1

there is no solution to this. Hence S does not span V.

:
 Example

Let

Find a spanning set for the null space of A.

Solution

We want the set of all vectors x with

Ax = 0

We find that the rref of A is

The parametric equations are

x1 = 7s + 6t
x2 = -4s - 5t
x3 = s
x4 = t

We can get the span in the following way. We first let

s = 1 and t = 0

to get

v1 = (7,-4,1,0)
:
 and let

s = 0 and t = 1
to get

v2 = (6,-5,0,1)

If we let S = {v1,v2} then S spans the null space of A.

Linear Independence

We now know how to find out if a collection of vectors span a vector space. It should be clear that if
S = {v1, v2, ... , vn) then Span(S) is spanned by S. The question that we next ask is are there any
redundancies. That is, is there a smaller subset of S that also span Span(S). If so, then one of the
vectors can be written as a linear combination of the others.

vi = c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + ci -1vi -1 + ci+1vi+1 + ... + cnvn

If this is the case then we call S a linearly dependent set. Otherwise, we say that S is linearly
independent. There is another way of checking that a set of vectors are linearly dependent.

Theorem

Let S = {v1, v2, ... , vn) be a set of vectors, then S is linearly dependent if and only if 0 is
a nontrivial linear combination of vectors in S. That is, there are constants c1, ..., cn with at
least one of the constants nonzero with

c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + cnvn = 0

Proof

Suppose that S is linearly dependent, then

vi = c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + ci -1vi -1 + ci+1vi+1 + ... + cnvn

Subtracting vi from both sides, we get

c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + ci -1vi -1 + vi + ci+1vi+1 + ... + cnvn = 0

:
 In the above equation ci = 1 which is nonzero, so that 0 is a nontrivial linear combination of vectors
in S.

Now let

c1v1 + c2v2 + ... + ci -1vi -1 + civi + ci+1vi+1 + ... + cnvn = 0

with ci nonzero. Divide both sides of the equation by ci and let aj = -cj / ci to get

-a1v1 - a2v2 - ... - ai -1vi -1 + vi - ai+1vi+1 - ... - anvn = 0

finally move all the terms to the other right side of the equation to get

vi = a1v1 + a2v2 + ... + ai -1vi -1 + ai+1vi+1 + ... + anvn

Example

Show that the set of vectors

S = {(1, 1, 3, 4), (0, 2, 3, 1), (4, 0, 0, 2)}

are linearly independent.

Solution

We write

c1(1, 1, 3, 4) + c2(0, 2, 3, 1) + c3(4, 0, 0, 2) = 0

We get four equations

c1 + 4c3 = 0
c1 + 2c2 = 0
3c1 + 3c2 = 0
4c1 + c2 + 2c3 = 0

The matrix corresponding to this homogeneous system is

:
 and

Hence

c1 = c2 = c3 = 0

and we can conclude that the vectors are linearly independent.

Example

Let

S = {cos2 t, sin2 t, 4)

then S is a linearly dependent set of vectors since

4 = 4cos2t + 4sin2t

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