MA2101 TUTORIAL 4

Question 1
Recall that we defined ei to be the canonical basis of F n , that is, e1 has 1 as the first
entry, then zeroes everywhere else, e2 has 1 as the second entry and zeroes everywhere
else, and so on. Now suppose that V is an n-dimensional vector space over F, and let
z : F n → V be a vector space isomorphism. Show that the set of vectors zi ≡ z(ei ) is a
basis for V (in the sense of being a spanning set which is linearly independent).

Question 2
Let T be a linear transformation from V to W , where dim(V ) = dim(W ) is finite. Use
the fundamental theorem of linear transformations to show that (T is surjective) ↔ (T is
injective). Notice that in lectures we assumed V = W, not just that their dimensions are
the same.

Question 3
Let ϵi be the basis for ROW vectors over F (that is, for the dual space Fˆn ) defined as
follows: ϵ1 has 1 as the first entry, then zeroes everywhere else, ϵ2 has 1 as the second
entry and zeroes everywhere else, and so on. Let v = ai ei ∈ F n . Show how to use the ϵj
to compute each component, aj . Explain that this means that the ϵi are the dual basis
for the vector basis ei .

Question 4
Let z : F n → V be a vector space isomorphism; that is, a basis for V (see Question 1,
above!). Show that the dual basis for z can be expressed as ζ i = ϵi ◦ z −1 , where ◦ denotes
a composition of mappings, and where the dual vectors ϵj were defined in Question 3.

Question 5
Show that the transpose of a linear mapping is linear.

Question 6
ˆ
Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space, let V̂ be the dual space to V , and let V̂ be the
ˆ
dual space to V̂ . Show that there is a natural isomorphism from V to V̂ . (Hint: start with
the idea that you are entitled to think of vectors as things that act on dual vectors, and
ˆ
try to cook up a mapping K : V → V̂ . Focus on injectivity and use Question 2. “Natural”
means that you don’t need to pick a basis in order to define your mapping.) Where exactly
did you use the fact that V is finite-dimensional? (It turns out that the statement is not
true in the infinite-dimensional case, so the assumption of finite-dimensionality is indeed
essential.) NOTE: This is a hard question. That is, an interesting one.
Question 7
Let R be the linear transformation of R2 to itself that rotates every vector anticlockwise
through an angle θ. Express R as a linear combination of tensor products of canonical
basis vectors with canonical dual basis vectors. (Hint: the matrix is defined to be the
set of coefficients in the expansion Mji ei ⊗ ϵj . Here we know these coefficients already,
because we know what the matrix of a rotation looks like, from Chapter 1! So you can
work backwards to write R in this form.)

Question 8
Let ei , ϵj be the canonical basis/dual basis for R2 . What happens to the vector e1 + e2
when acted on by the linear transformation

− e 1 ⊗ ϵ2 + e 2 ⊗ ϵ1 ?

Does your answer make sense geometrically? (See Question 7.)