HOMEWORK 4

PAUL BRESSLER

1. Class notes
During the lectures proofs of certain elementary but important state-
ments were left as homework exercises. Please write down those proofs
skipping those which appear as problems below.
1.1. Uniqueness of inverse. Suppose that S and T are sets, f : T →
S and gi : S → T , i = 1, 2, are maps such that gi ◦ f = IdT and
f ◦ gi = IdS . Show that g1 = g2 .
Suggestion: at the very beginning of the course we proved the unique-
ness of the ”negative”; the prolem at hand is completely analogous.
Notation: The unique g : S → T such that g ◦f = IdT and f ◦g = IdS
is denoted by f −1 .
1.2. The inverse of a linear map is linear (a linear bijection is
an isomorphism). Suppose that V and W are vector spaces, f : V →
W is a bijective linear map. Thus, f has the set-theoretic inverse
f −1 : W → V . Show that f −1 is linear.
1.3. From linear maps to matrices. Recall that the vector space of
m×n matrices, denoted Matm×n (R) is defined as the space of functions
{1, 2, . . . , m} × {1, 2, . . . , n} → R. Such a function is usually repre-
sented by its values as a table (aij ), where 1 6 i 6 m and 1 6 j 6 n.
For f ∈ HomR (Rn , Rm ) the associated m × n matrix mat(f ) ∈
Matm×n (R) whose entries mat(f )ij are defined by the formulas
n
X
f (~ej ) = mat(f )ij ~ei ,
i=1
n
where the vectors ~ej ∈ R in the left-hand side of the formula form the
standard basis of Rn and the vectors ~ei ∈ Rm in the right-hand side of
the formula form the standard basis of Rm .
The assignment f 7→ mat(f ) defines the map
mat : HomR (Rn , Rm ) → Matm×n (R).
(1) Show that the map mat is linear.
(2) Show that the map mat is an isomorphism.
1
2 P.BRESSLER

1.4. Linear Algebra I. Suppose that g : Rn → Rm is a linear map.

Let f~i = g(~ei ) ∈ Rm . (Here and throughout ~ei ∈ Rn denote the
standard basis of Rn .)
Show that the collection of vectors f~i , i = 1, 2, . . . , n, forms a basis
of Rm if and only if m = n and g is an isomorphism.

2. Miscellaneous problems
2.1. Suppose that the set T is a basis of the vector space V , S and S 0
are subsets of T such that
= S S 0,
S
(1) T T
(2) S S 0 = ∅ .
Show that
+ Span(S 0 ) = V ,
(1) Span(S) T
(2) Span(S) Span(S 0 ) = (0).
Recall that, in this case we say that V is (decomposed into) a direct
sum of Span(S) and Span(S 0 ).

2.2. Show that a subset S of the vector space V is a subspace if and

only if Span(S) = S.

2.3. Suppose that V and W are vector spaces and f : V → W is an

injective linear map. Let S ⊂ V be an independent subset. Show that
the image f (S) is independent.

2.4. Professor is also human. Once upon a time, during a lecture

in Algebra Lineal 2, I attempted to prove the following statement: if
f : U → V is a linear map and S is a subset of U , then

f (S) is independent (in V ) implies S is independent.

I was not successful because this statement is simply not true. Find a
counterexample!

2.5. Suppose that V and W are vector spaces, f : V → W is a linear

map and S ⊂ V be an independent subset such that f (S) ⊂ W is
a basis of W . Show that V decomposes into a direct sum ker(f ) +
Span(S).
 HOMEWORK 4 3

2.6. Recall that (as we showed in class), if f : S → T is an injective

map of sets, then there exists a map g : T → S such that the composi-
tion g ◦ f : S → S is the identity map.
Prove the Linear Algebra version of the above statement. Namely,
show that for any injective linear map f : U → V there exists a linear
map g : V → U such that the composition g ◦ f : U → U is the identity
map.
Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad de Los Andes
E-mail address: paul.bressler@gmail.com