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EXERCISES

1. Prove properties 1 and 2 at the bottom of page 1.

2. Prove that the intersection of an arbitrary collection of subspaces of a vector space is
also a subspace of the given vector space.
3. Let

be a vector space over a field and let

is a subspace of if and only if

and
or

be subspaces of . Prove that

.

4. Let be a vector space over a field and let be a (possibly infinite) basis for . Show
that any vector in can be expressed as a linear combination of vectors in in a
unique way.
{
} be
5. Let be a finitely generated vector space over a field , and let
a basis for . Let be a vector in and let
be the unique scalars such
} { } is also a

that
. Show that {
basis for if and only if
.
6. Let

be a vector space over a field

is a subspace of .

7. Let
a)
b)

and

and let

be subsets of a vector space

(
)
(
)

be an infinite subset of . Show that

over a field . Prove that

8. Let be a non trivial finitely generated vector space over a field .

a) Show that has a finite basis.
b) Prove that any set of generators for has a finite subset that also generates .
c) Prove that all bases for are finite and have the same number of elements.
9. Let be an
dimensional vector space over a field .
a) Show that any collection of linearly independent vectors in is a basis for .
b) Prove that any generating set for with elements is a basis for .
10. Let be a finitely generated vector space over a field
Show that is also finitely generated and

and let
.

be a subspace of .

11. A partially ordered set ( ) is said to be well ordered if any (non empty) subset of
has a smallest element.
a) Show that the set of real numbers together with the usual partial ordering is
not well ordered.
b) Prove that the subset of given by

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S. Adarve

together with the partial ordering inherited from (

12. Let
a)

b)

), is well ordered.

be a non trivial vector space over a field .

Assume that is finitely generated. If
is a linearly independent set
of vectors in , show that this collection can be extended to a basis for . Hint:
Use the Replacement Theorem.
Assume now that is not finitely generated. If is a (possibly infinite) linearly
independent set of vectors in , prove that it can be extended to a basis for .
Hint: Apply Zorns Lemma to an appropriate family of linearly independent
subsets of with the partial order relation .

13. Prove Theorem 1.6. Hint: Start with a basis for

and
to bases for
and
, respectively.
14. Prove that regarded as a vector space over
fact that is transcendental.

and consider extensions

is infinite dimensional. Hint: Use the

15. If
and
are the subspaces of
( ) of symmetric and skew symmetric
( )
matrices, respectively, show that
if and only if the characteristic
of is not 2.
( ) of all strictly lower triangular matrices (i.e. lower
16. a) Let be the subspace of
triangular matrices whose diagonal entries are also equal to zero). Find two different
( ). (You might need to discuss separately the case
direct complements for in
where the characteristis of is 2.)
b) Does

have a direct complement in

? Justify your answer.

17. Prove that b) c) in Theorem 1.7. Also, show that if

subspaces of a vector space whose sum is a direct sum, then

.
18. Let
prove that
{ }.
19. Let {

be subspaces of a vector space . If

is also a direct sum if and only if

is a direct sum,
)

be an arbitrary (possibly infinite) collection of subspaces of a vector space

. The sum
and
subspace of .

July 2014

are finitely generated

(
)

is defined to be the subset of

of all sums

except for a finite number of indices

. Show that

such that
is a

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20. A sum of subspaces {

of a vector space

(see Exercise

) is said to be a direct

sum when the following condition is satisfied:

If

Prove that a sum

, then

, are such that

, then

for all

is direct if and only if whenever

for all

.
, with

. If happens to be a finite set of indices, is this

definition of direct sum equivalent to the one given in Section 1.3? Justify your answer.
21. Show that

{ }. (See Exercise

22. Give an example of a vector space

with the same cardinality.

.)

and a proper subspace

of

that have bases

23. Fill in the details in Example 17.

July 2014

S. Adarve