MATH 146 Winter 2019 Assignment 5 March 1, 2019

Problem 1

(a) To prove T is linear, we require that for all X, Y ∈ Mn×n (F), a ∈ F, T (aX + Y ) = aT (X) + T (Y ).
Write    
x11 x12 . . . x1n y11 y12 ... y1n
   
 x21 x22 . . . x2n   y21 y22 ... y2n 
X=  .. .. .. .. 
, Y =
 .. .. .. .. 
.
 . . . .   . . . . 
xn1 xn2 . . . xnn yn1 yn2 ... ynn
Then we have
   
x11 x12 ... x1n y11 y12 . . . y1n
   
 x21 x22 ... x2n   y21 y22 . . . y2n 
aX + Y = a 
 .. .. 
+ .
 .. 
 . ... ..
. .   ..
..
.
..
.

. 
xn1 xn2 ... xnn yn1 yn2 . . . ynn
   
ax11 . . . ax1n y11 . . . y1n
 . ..   .. 

=  .. ..   . .. 
. .  +  .. . . 
axn1 . . . axnn yn1 . . . ynn
 
ax11 + y11 . . . ax1n + y1n
 .. .. .. 
= . . .
.

axn1 + y11 . . . axnn + ynn

This gives us

∑
n
T (aX + Y ) = axii + yii
i=1
∑
n ∑
n
=a xii + yii
i=1 i=1

= aT (X) + T (Y ).

Thus, we have that T is linear.

(b) One basis of N (T ) is {Eij : i ̸= j, 1 ≤ i, j ≤ n} ∪ {E11 − Eii : 2 ≤ i ≤ n}, where Eij denotes a standard
th th
basis vector of Mn×n (F) (i.e.
 where the j entry in the i row is 1 and all other entries of the matrix
0 1 ... 0
 
0 0 . . . 0

are 0. For example, E12 =  . . . .. 
. . . ).
 . . . .
0 0 ... 0
(c) Let V = Mn×n (F). We need to show that dim(R(T )) + dim(N (T )) = dim(V ). Since R(T ) = F, we
know dim(R(T )) = 1. dim(V ) = n2 . We therefore need that dim(N (T )) = n2 − 1. To show this,
consider the size of the basis given in 1b). |{Eij : i ̸= j, 1 ≤ i, j ≤ n}| = n2 − n, since there are n2 basis
vectors for V and we are excluding the vectors who have non zero values along the main diagonal, of
which there are n. In addition, |{E11 − Eii : 2 ≤ i ≤ n}| = n − 1, since i ranges from 2 to n. This
makes the total size of the basis n2 − n + n − 1 = n2 − 1, as required.