Math 211 Assignment 3.

Assignment must be submitted to Brightspace before 11:59 PM on

Thurs. Oct. 21.

1. Consider the system

x1 + 2x2 − 3x3 = −5
2x1 + 4x2 − 6x3 + x4 = −8
6x1 + 13x2 − 17x3 + 4x4 = −21

a) Find the reduced row echelon form of the coefficient matrix. [3]
b) Give the general solution to the system. [3]
       
 1
  1 2  0 
 


 
     
   
1 2 2 −5

        

4
2. Let B =  , ,  ⊂ R . Is   in span(B)? Justify your
 

−4
0 1 1
      

      
   

      

  

 1 1 
3 1
answer. [3]
   
 1  1
   
 1  2
   
3. Let W = span({v1 , v2 }) where v1 =   , v2 =  . Let W ⊥ =
 
−1 1
   
   
1 0
{v ∈ R4 | v · w = 0 ∀w ∈ W }.

a) Prove that W and W ⊥ are subspaces of R4 . [2]

b) Prove that if x ∈ R4 is a vector, then x ∈ W ⊥ if and only if
x · v1 = 0 and x · v2 = 0. [2]
c) Using b) write down a system of 2 linear equations in 4 un-
knowns x = (x1 , x2 , x3 , x4 ) which determines whether x ∈ R4 is
in W ⊥ . [2]
d) Find the general solution to your system in c). How many
parameters does it have? Use your general solution to find a
basis for W ⊥ . [4]

1
4. Let A be a matrix.

a) Let B be a matrix which is obtained from A by performing a

single elementary row operation on A. Show that every row of
B is a linear combination of rows of A and that every row of A
is a linear combination of rows of B. [2]
b) Suppose R is a row echelon matrix obtained from A by a se-
quence of elementary row operations applied to A. Prove that
every row of R is a linear combination of rows of A and that
every row of A is a linear combination of rows of R (Hint. Show
that span({rows of A}) = span({rows of R}). [2]
c) Show that the nonzero rows of R are linearly independent. [2]
d) Show that A has linearly independent rows if and only if R has
no zero rows. [2]
e) Assume A is m-by-n and that the rows of A are linearly indepen-
dent. How many parameters are there in the general solution
to the system [A | 0]? [2]
f) Suppose that W is a subspace of Rn spanned by linearly inde-
pendent vectors v1 , . . . , vk . Let W ⊥ = {v ∈ Rn | v·w = 0 ∀w ∈
W }. Apply your results above to show that dim(W ⊥ ) = n − k.
[2]