ENSIA Academic year 2022-2023

Linear Algebra Second Academic Semester

Test 1

Name and surname :

Exercise 1 1. Give the definition of a subspace of a given K-vector w a subset of V .

A subset W of V is a subspace of V if
(a) 0V ∈ W .
(b) ∀α ∈ K, ∀x, y ∈ W, αx + y ∈ W .
2. Let W = {(x, y, z) ∈ R3 ; x2 + y 2 + z 2 ⩽ 1}. Is W a subspace of R3 ?
We have (1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0) ∈ W but (1, 0, 0) + (0, 1, 0) = (1, 1, 0) ∈
/ W . Then W is not a
subspace of R3 .
3. Let V be a K-vector space. Let U and W be two subspaces of V such that U ̸= W ,
U ̸= V and W ̸= V . Prove that U ∪ W ̸= V .
Suppose U ∪ W = V . Since U ̸= V and W ̸= V , then U ⊊ V and W ⊊ V . Therefore,
there exist x ∈ V , x ∈/ U and y ∈ V , y ∈/ W . We have x, y ∈ U ∪ W , so x ∈ W since
x∈ / U and y ∈ U since y ∈/ W . On the other hand, as V is a vector space, then x+y ∈ V ,
that is, x + y ∈ U ∪ W . This implies that x + y ∈ U or x + y ∈ W .
If x + y ∈ U , then x + y − y = x ∈ U and if x + y ∈ W , then x + y − x = y ∈ W . In
both cases, it’s a contradiction.