We are given two vectors (a,b),(c,d)in RR^2 which lie in the same one dimensional subspace, and at least one of a,b,c,d is nonzero. How can we find a single vector in terms of a,b,c,d which spans the subspace containing the two original vectors?

Kymani Hatfield

Kymani Hatfield

Answered question

2022-10-23

We are given two vectors ( a , b ) , ( c , d ) R 2 which lie in the same one dimensional subspace, and at least one of a,b,c,d is nonzero. How can we find a single vector in terms of a,b,c,d which spans the subspace containing the two original vectors?

Answer & Explanation

Messiah Trevino

Messiah Trevino

Beginner2022-10-24Added 18 answers

Withour lost of generality, assume that either a or b are non-zero. Since the two vectors lie in the same 1-dimensional vector space, then, there exists λ R such that ( c , d ) = λ ( a , b ). Now I distinguish three cases:
If λ = 0, then c=d=0 and the sum (which is just the first vector) spans the vector subspaces in terms of a,b,c and d.
If λ > 0, the sum of both vectors spans the vector subspace in terms of a,b,c and d.
Finally, if λ < 0, the difference is considered.
Ralzereep9h

Ralzereep9h

Beginner2022-10-25Added 3 answers

"Since the vectors (a,b) and (c,d) lie in the same one dimensional subspace of 2 , then they lie on the same line, which means (a,b),(c,d) are scalar multiples of each other, or a , b = λ c , d for some λ. This means that a basis for our subspace is just (a,b), since if α a , b + β c , d is a linear combination of the original vectors, we can write this as α λ c , d + β c , d = α λ + β c , d , so any vector in the subspace is in the span of (c,d)."

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