# Linear Algebra Problem Involving Span

• March 1st 2013, 01:58 PM
Elusive1324
Linear Algebra Problem Involving Span
I've attached the problem below.

The question asks me to find vectors u and v (in R^3) such that u+v is equal to a vector w with the form

|2b+4c |
| b |
| c |

In my approach, I first evaluated the span{u,v}.
If u=|u1 u2 u3|^T and v=|v1 v2 v3|^T. I don't understand why they are asking me for a specific vector u and v. Couldn't I just let either u2 and u3 or v2 and v3 be zero and u2 and u3 or v2 and v3 not picked be 1?
• March 1st 2013, 02:19 PM
Assassin0071
Re: Linear Algebra Problem Involving Span
Since any vector in $w \in W$ can be written as $w = (2b+4c, b, c)$ we can write $w$ as $w = b(2, 1, 0) + c(4, 0, 1)$ so that $w$ is a linear combination of $(2, 1, 0)$ and $(4, 0, 1)$ this means that $W = span\{(2, 1, 0), (4, 0, 1)\}$
• March 1st 2013, 02:31 PM
Elusive1324
Re: Linear Algebra Problem Involving Span
Thank you for the reply. I can see how that can work. In general, can't I represent W as the spans of other vectors u and v as long as the components add up to create w with the form specified?

W = span\{(2,1,1), (4,0,0)} What about the span of these two vectors?
What about W = span\{(2,0,0), (4,1,1)}?
• March 1st 2013, 03:10 PM
Assassin0071
Re: Linear Algebra Problem Involving Span
$W = span\{(2, 0, 0), (4, 1, 1)}$
This means that for any $w \in W$ we have $w = b(2, 0, 0) + c(4, 1, 1)$ for some scalars $b, c$
this means that $w = (2b + 4c, c, c)$ which is not the same as the original $w = (2b + 4c, b , c)$
In general if you have a problem like this you want to represent the general case as a linear combinations of some vectors (thus the span). What you would do is separate the coefficients from each other (for example in your original question: $w = (2b, b, 0) + (4c, 0, c)$) then factor out the coefficients (again in your original question $w = b(2, 1, 0) + c(4, 0, 1)$) to obtain a linear combination of some vectors. The span of those vectors will be equal to W. You can also use any scalar multiple of those vectors (for example $W = span\{(2, 1, 0), (4, 0, 1)\} = span\{(4, 2, 0), (4, 0, 1)\} = span\{(2, 1, 0), (-4, 0, -1)\}$ and you can keep going with any scalar multiple).