Linear Algebra: A Modern Introduction

Published by Cengage Learning
ISBN 10: 1285463242
ISBN 13: 978-1-28546-324-7

Chapter 3 - Matrices - 3.1 Matrix Operations - Exercises 3.1 - Page 153: 29

Answer

Because columns of the matrix $B$ are linearly dependent, there are non-trivial constants such that linear combination of those columns is equal to 0 . Using the same constants show that columns of matrix $A B$ make a linear combination equal to 0 which means that they are linearly dependent.

Work Step by Step

Put $B=\left[\begin{array}{llll}b_{1} & b_{2} & \cdots & b_{n}\end{array}\right]$ where $b_{1}, b_{2}, \dots, b_{n}$ are columns of the matrix $B .$ Agreeing to proposition those columns are linearly dependent, thus there are some constants $c_{1}, c_{2}, \ldots c_{n}$ like $c_{1} b_{1}+c_{2} b_{2}+\dots+c_{n} b_{n}=0$ and $c_{i} \neq 0$ for some $i \in\{1,2, \ldots, n\} .$ The result of matrices $A$ and $B$ is then: \[ A B=\left[\begin{array}{llll} A b_{1} & A b_{2} & \cdots & A b_{n} \end{array}\right] \] where the $i^{\text {th }}$ column of the matrix $A B$ is result of the matrix $A$ and the $i^{\text {th }}$ column of the matrix $B$. Now we have that: \[ \begin{aligned} c_{1} A b_{1}+c_{2} A b_{2}+\cdots+c_{n} A b_{n} &=A c_{1} b_{1}+A c_{2} b_{2}+\cdots+A c_{n} b_{n}=\\ &=A\left(c_{1} b_{1}+c_{2} b_{2}+\cdots+c_{n} b_{n}\right)=\\ &=A(0)=0 \end{aligned} \] There exist constants $c_{1}, c_{2}, \ldots, c_{n}$ like $c_{1} A b_{1}+c_{2} A b_{2}+\dots+c_{n} A b_{n}=0$ and $c_{i} \neq 0$ for some $i \in\{1,2, \ldots, n\},$ so columns of the matrix $A B$ are linearly dependent.
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