4 Sums, Intersections and Direct Sums of Subspaces: 4.1 A Dimension Formula

4 Sums, intersections and direct sums of subspaces
As before let V be a vector space over the eld R (but R can be replaced with any eld F
throughout this chapter).
Lemma 4.1 Suppose that U and W are subspaces of V ; then U W is also a subspace of V .
Proof to be completed.
Remark 4.2 The union of two vector spaces is usually not a vector space. For example, let
V = R
2
and take W
1
= {(x, 0) : x R} and W
2
= {(0, y) : y R}. Then W
1
W
2
is the
set of points on the two axes. This is not closed under addition and hence is not a subspace,
since for example (1, 0) + (0, 1) is not in W
1
W
2
.
Recall that if X and Y are subspaces of V , then their sum is
X +Y = {x +y : x X, y Y }.
Lemma 4.3 Assume that X, Y are subspaces of V . Then X +Y is also a subspace of V ; it
is the smallest subspace of V which contains both X and Y .
4.1 A dimension formula
Theorem 4.4 Suppose X, Y are subspaces of a nite-dimensional vector space V over a eld
F. Then
dim(X +Y ) = dimX + dimY dim(X Y ).
Proof Suppose D = {d
1
, . . . , d
p
} is a basis for X Y . By Theorem 3.24 D can be extended
to a basis of X, say D {x
1
, . . . , x
m
}.
Similarly, we can extend D to a basis for Y , say D {y
1
, . . . , y
r
}. We claim that
B = D {x
1
, . . . , x
m
, y
1
, . . . , y
r
}
is a basis for X +Y .
(i) To prove that B spans X +Y : Take v = x +y X +Y , then x =
i
d
i
+
j
x
j
and
y =
i
d
i
+
k
y
k
. So v =
(
i
+
i
)d
i
+
j
x
j
+
k
y
k
hence is in the span of B.
Conversely, B is a subset of X +Y and therefore the span of B is contained in X +Y .
(ii) To prove that B is linearly independent:
Suppose 0 =
i
d
i
+
j

j
x
j
+
k
y
k
with scalars
i
,
j
,
k
. Then
() z =
i
d
i
+
j
x
j
=
k
y
k
X Y.
1
Therefore z =
1
d
1
+ . . . +
p
d
p
for some
1
, . . . ,
p
R, since D is a basis for X Y . But
then we have two expressions of z as linear combinations of our basis of X, namely the rst
half of (*) and also
z =
1
d
1
+. . . +
p
d
p
+ 0.x
1
+. . . + 0.x
m
By uniqueness,
j
= 0 for all j. Similarly interchanging the roles of X and Y we get
k
= 0
for all k. Then the original linear combination becomes 0 =
i
d
i
and since D is linearly
independent, it follows that
i
= 0 for all i.
Example 4.5 Suppose dimV = 10 and X, Y are subspaces of V of dimension 6. Then
dim(XY ) 2. To prove this, note that X+Y V , and therefore dim(X+Y ) 10. From
the dimension formula,
10 6 + 6 dim(X Y )
and so dim(X Y ) 2.
The proof of Theorem 4.4 can be used to nd a basis for X +Y as in the next example.
Example 4.6 Let V = R
4
, and let
X = {(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
, x
4
) V : x
2
+x
3
+x
4
= 0},
Y = {(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
, x
4
) V : x
1
+x
2
= 0, x
3
= 2x
4
}.
We want to nd bases and dimensions for X, Y and for X Y and X + Y . Always start
by choosing a basis for the smallest subspace, here X Y , and extending to bases of larger
subspaces.
(1) We nd a basis for X Y . For this, we must solve the equations
x
2
+x
3
+x
4
= 0
x
1
+x
2
= 0
x
3
2x
4
= 0
We write down a corresponding matrix (taking the second equation rst) and nd the reduced
row echelon form

1 1 0 0
0 1 1 1
0 0 1 2
E =
1 0 0 3
0 1 0 3
0 0 1 2
.
Then X Y is the space of solutions of Ex = 0. Set x
4
= , then
X Y = {(3, 3, 2, ) : R}
with basis D = {w} where w = (3, 3, 2, 1). So X Y has dimension 1.
(2) We extend D to a basis for X.
Write X = {(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
, x
2
x
3
) : x
1
, x
2
, x
3
R} and
() (x
1
, x
2
, x
3
, x
2
x
3
) = x
1
(1, 0, 0, 0) +x
2
(0, 1, 0, 1) +x
3
(0, 0, 1, 1).
So X has a basis S = {v
1
, v
2
, v
3
} where
v
1
= (1, 0, 0, 0), v
2
= (0, 1, 0, 1), v
3
= (0, 0, 1, 1)
2
and dimX = 3. We want to apply the Steinitz Exchange Lemma to get a basis for X
containing w. We have
w = (3, 3, 2, 1) = 3v
1
+ (3)v
2
+ 2v
3
By the Steinitz Exchange Lemma Sp(S) = Sp{w, v
1
, v
3
}. This new spanning set for X has
size 3, so it must be a basis for X by Corollary 3.26. So
D {(1, 0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 1, 1)}
is a basis for X containing the basis D for X Y .
(3) Just as in (2) we can extend D to a basis for Y , for example
D {(1, 1, 0, 0)}.
(4) The proof of the dimension formula shows that then the set
D {(1, 0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 1, 1), (1, 1, 0, 0)} = {(3, 3, 2, 1), (1, 0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 1, 1), (1, 1, 0, 0)}
is a basis for X +Y .
The case when the intersection of the two subspaces X and Y is zero is important.
Denition 4.7 The vector space V is the direct sum of subspaces X and Y if
(i) X Y = {0}, and
(ii) X +Y = V .
If so, we write V = X Y .
Lemma 4.8 Suppose X and Y are subspaces of V . Then V = X Y if and only if every
v V has a unique expression v = x +y with x X and y Y .
Lemma 4.9 Suppose X and Y are subspaces of V . Then the following are equivalent:
(a) V = X Y
(b) X Y = {0} and dimV = dimX + dimY
(c) X +Y = V and dimV = dimX + dimY .
Corollary 4.10 Assume that V = X Y is the direct sum of subspaces X and Y . Suppose
that B is a basis for X and C is a basis for Y . Then the union B C is a basis for V .
Proof: This is a special case of the proof of Theorem 4.4.
3

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