E 231 Assignment # 2

Issued: August 30, 2017 Due: September 15, 2017

1 Inequalities
Let x, y Rn , A Rmn . Suppose x y component-wise. Is it true that Ax Ay?
2 Polytopes
Consider the pyramid in R3 with vertices (1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1).
Describe the pyramid as Ax b.
3 Polytopes
Consider the unit cube in R3 defined by kxk 1. Describe this region as Ax b.
4 Polytopes
Consider the unit cube in Rn

C = {x Rn : 0 xi 1 for i = 1, , n}

write C as Ax b.
5 Linear Programming (from: MIT open course ware, OR 15.053)
A post office requires different numbers of employees on different days of the week. Each em-
ployee works five consecutive days and then receives two days off. The number of employees
needed on each day is specified below.

Day of week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Employees needed 17 13 15 19 14 16 11
The objective is to determine a schedule to minimize the total number of employees needed to
meet the demand. Formulate this as an LP, and solve it in MatLab using the linprog command.
6 Linear Programming
A square room 5 meters by 5 meters has heaters in three of its corners half-way up the walls.
Each heater has independently controlled thermostat settings. If the thermostat of a heater is
set at T degrees, its thermal contribution at a point r meters away is (T To ) exp(r/R). Here
To = 50 F is the ambient temperature and R = 3 meters is the heating length. The temperature
at any point in the room is the sum of the the thermal contributions from each heater.
Determine optimal thermostat settings so that the temperature in the room is as uniform as
possible around 70 F. Use the function linprog in MatLab.
Hint: Let the thermostats of the three heaters be set at S1 , S2 , S3 . Consider a point p in the
room. We can calculate the distance from p to each of the heaters. Call these distances r1 , r2 , r3 .
Then, the temperature at the point will be

T (p) = To + (S1 To ) exp(r1 /R) + (S2 To ) exp(r2 /R) + (S3 To ) exp(r3 /R)

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 where To = 50 F is the ambient temperature and R = 3 meters is the heating length. Notice
the form of T (p):

T (p) = + S1 + S2 + S3

We would like T (p) to be close to 70 F. This means want to minimize |T (p) 70|. If we have a
collection of points pi : i = 1, , n, we can write

T (pi ) = i + i S1 + i S2 + i S3

Now, you can set up a LP to minimize

max |T (pi ) 70|

i

7 Polytopes
Consider the set

C = {x Rn : |xi | 2 for i = 1, , n}

Is this a polytope?
8 Linear Programming
Consider the optimization problem:

max c x subject to 1 kxk 2

xRn

Is this a linear programming problem?

9 Linear Programming
Consider the optimization problem:

max min{c x, d x} subject to Ax b

x

Rewrite this as a standard form linear program.

10 Vector Spaces
Let R22 be the set of all 2 2 real matrices.
(a) Briefly verify that R22 is a vector space under usual matrix addition and scalar multipli-
cation. Dont turn this in.
(b) What is the dimension of R22 ?
(c) Find a basis for R22 .
(d) Let
 
1 1
A=
0 2

Is the set I, A, A2 linearly dependent or independent in R22 ?



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11 Linear dependence/independence
Which of the following sets of vectors are linearly independent in R3 ?

1 2 0
(a) 0 , 0 , 5
2 1 1

4 1 2
(b) 5 , 2 , 1
1 1 3

1 4 7 7912
(c) 2 , 5 , 8 , 314
3 6 9 0.098

12 Bases
Let V be a vector space. Let

B = {bi : i I}

be a basis for this vector space. Here I is a set of indices. Prove that B is linearly independent.

13 Subspaces
Let A Rmn and consider the subset

S = {x Rn : Ax = 0}

Prove that S a subspace.

14 Subspaces
Let S, T be subspaces of some vector space V. For each of these assertions, offer a proof or
counterexample.

(a) S T is a subspace.
(b) S T is a subspace.
(c) S + T is a subspace.

Spend some time understanding the geometry of these objects.

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