THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

MATH2101 Linear Algebra I

Tutorial 2

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1. Let A = ⎢4 5 6⎥. Find the reduced row echelon form of A, the rank of A and solve the
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equation Ax = 0.
2. Let a be a real number. Find the reduced row echelon form of

2a a + 4 a
A=[ ].
−a −2 a

3. Let u, v and w be vectors in Rn . If {u + v, u − v, w} is linearly independent, prove that

{u, v, w} is linearly independent.

4. Give an example for each of the following, or explain why no example exists.
(a) Two vectors u and v in R3 such that there is only a finite number of vectors which are
linear combinations of u and v.
(b) A matrix in reduced row echelon form whose number of non-zero entries is greater than
the number of zero entries.
(c) A 3 × 5 matrix with nullity 1.
5. Let u, v, w and z be column vectors of the same size. Prove or disprove the following.
(a) If both w and z are linear combinations of u and v, then w + z is a linear combination of
u and v.
(b) If w is a linear combination of u and v, v is a linear combination of u and w, then u is
a linear combination of v and w.
(c) Let S = Span{u, v} and T = Span{w, z}. Then S ∪ T = Span{u, v, w, z}.