PROBLEM SET 3
LINEAR ALGEBRA (MTH201) (2025 - 2026 (I))
(1) Let U and W be subspaces of a vector space V . Then U ∪ W is a subspace of V if and only if U ⊆ W
or W ⊆ U .
(2) Let V be the set of real sequences. Show that it is a vector space, and further show that the set of
all convergent sequences {an } of real numbers is a subspace of V .
(3) Let F be a field and let S ⊆ P (F ) be a set of nonzero polynomials such that no two distinct elements
of S have the same degree. Then S is linearly independent over F .
(4) Let V be a vector space over a field F , and let W1 , W2 ⊆ V be subspaces. Define
W1 + W2 := { w1 + w2 : w1 ∈ W1 , w2 ∈ W2 }.
(a) Show that W1 + W2 is a subspace of V containing both W1 and W2 .
(b) If U ⊆ V is any subspace with W1 ⊆ U and W2 ⊆ U , then W1 + W2 ⊆ U .
(c) If W1 ∩ W2 = {0}, then every v ∈ W1 + W2 can be written uniquely as v = w1 + w2 with
wi ∈ Wi . In this case, we call the space W1 + W2 the direct sum of W1 and W2 , denoted by
W1 ⊕ W2 .
(5) Show that the space Mn (F ) = W1 ⊕ W2 where W1 is the subspace of all upper triangular matrices
and W2 is the subspace of all strictly lower triangular matrices.
(6) Let Mn (F ) denote the vector space of all n × n matrices over a field F . Let
Symn (F ) = {A ∈ Mn (F ) : AT = A}
be the set of all symmetric matrices, and
Skewn (F ) = {A ∈ Mn (F ) : AT = −A}
be the set of all skew-symmetric matrices.
(a) Show that Symn (F ) and Skewn (F ) are subspaces of Mn (F ).
(b) If char(F ) ̸= 2, then show that
Mn (F ) = Symn (F ) ⊕ Skewn (F )
as a direct sum of vector spaces.
(7) If V and W are vector spaces over a field F for which |V | = |W |, does it follow that dim V = dim W ?
(8) Let W be a subspace of Rn . Show that W is a closed subset of Rn . Equivalently, the complement
Rn \ W is open: for every x ∈ Rn \ W there exists r > 0 such that the open ball B(x, r) is contained
in Rn \ W .
(9) Let V be an n-dimensional vector space over an infinite field F . Let S1 , . . . , Sk ⊆ V be subspaces
with dim Si ≤ m < n for all i. Then there exists a subspace T ⊆ V with dim T = n − m and
T ∩ Si = {0} for every i = 1, . . . , k.
(10) Let V be the set of solutions to the system of linear equations:
x1 − 2x2 + x3 = 0 and 2x1 − 3x2 + x3 = 0.
Find a basis of V and its dimension.
(11) Find a basis and the dimensions of the following vector spaces:
(a) The space of n × n matrices with trace zero.
(b) The space of n × n upper triangular matrices.
(c) The space of n × n skew-symmetric matrices and the space of n × n symmetric matrices.
(12) Let C(R) denote the vector space of all continuous real-valued functions on R. Show that C(R) is
infinite-dimensional.
