Elementary Linear Algebra 7th Edition

Published by Cengage Learning
ISBN 10: 1-13311-087-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-13311-087-3

Chapter 4 - Vector Spaces - 4.6 Rank of a Matrix and Systems of Linear Equations - 4.6 Exercises - Page 199: 25

Answer

a basis for the nullspace of $A$ consists of the vector $$\left[\begin{aligned} 1\\ 2 \end{aligned}\right].$$

Work Step by Step

Given the matrix $$ A=\left[ \begin{array}{rr}{2} & {-1} \\ {-6} & {3}\end{array} \right] $$ The reduced row echelon form is given by $$ \left[ \begin {array}{cc} 1&-\frac{1}{2}\\ 0&0\end {array} \right] . $$ The corresponding system is $$ \begin{aligned} 2x_{1}- x_{2} &=0 \end{aligned}. $$ The solution of the above system is $x_1=t$ and $x_2=2t$. This means that the solution space $Ax = 0 $ of consists of all solution vectors of the following form $$x=\left[\begin{aligned} x_{1}\\ x_{2} \end{aligned}\right]=\left[\begin{aligned} t\\ 2t \end{aligned}\right]=t\left[\begin{aligned} 1\\ 2 \end{aligned}\right].$$ So, a basis for the nullspace of $A$ consists of the vector $$\left[\begin{aligned} 1\\ 2 \end{aligned}\right].$$
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