National University of Singapore
Department of Mathematics
Semester 1, 2025/26 MA2001 Linear Algebra I Tutorial 8
Questions in this tutorial sheet will be discussed in the tutorial classes in Week 10
(20/10-24/10).
You are advised to revise Sections 5.1 and 5.2 before attempting the questions.
Questions
1. Consider a triangle in R4 with vertices A = (1, 1, 0, 0), B = (1, −1, 0, 0) and
C = (2, 0, 0, 1).
(a) Find the lengths of the sides of the triangle.
(b) Find the angle between AB and AC.
(c) Verify the cosine rule: 2|AB| |AC| cos(θ) = |AB|2 + |AC|2 − |BC|2 , where θ
is the angle between AB and AC.
(Learning objectives: To understand the definitions of length, angle and dot
product between vectors.)
2. Define a Q-product in R4 as follows
u1 v1
u v
Q(u, v) = 3u1 v1 + 2u2 v2 + u3 v3 + u4 v4 , for all u = 2 , v = 2 ∈ R4 .
u3 v3
u4 v4
(a) Show that for any u, v, w ∈ R4 and k ∈ R,
Q(ku + v, w) = kQ(u, w) + Q(v, w).
(b) We say that u and v are Q-orthogonal if Q(u, v) = 0. Prove or disprove the
following statement.
Let S = {u, v, x, y} be any set of mutually Q-orthogonal non-zero vectors in
R4 . Then S forms a basis for R4 .
(Learning objectives: To appreciate other types of products that can be defined
and whether properties we have for the usual scalar product carries over as well.)
3. Let u1 = (−2, −4, 1), u2 = (3, −1, 2) and u3 = (1, −1, −2).
(a) Show that {u1 , u2 , u3 } is an orthogonal basis for R3 .
1
(b) Let V = span{u1 , u2 } and W = span{u3 }. Write each of the following
vectors as a sum of two vectors v and w such that v ∈ V and w ∈ W :
(i) (0, 0, 1), (ii) (1, 1, 0).
(Learning objectives: To compute the orthogonal projection of a vector onto a
vector space.)
1 1 0
1 1 0
4. Let A = , u1 = (1, 1, 1, 0)T , u2 = (1, 1, 1, 1)T and u3 = (0, 0, 1, 1)T .
1 1 1
0 1 1
(a) Use the Gram-Schmidt Process to transform {u1 , u2 , u3 } into an orthonor-
mal basis {w1 , w2 , w3 } for the column space of A. (Do not change the order
of u1 , u2 , u3 when applying the Gram-Schmidt Process.)
(b) Write each of u1 , u2 , u3 as a linear combination of w1 , w2 , w3 .
(c) Hence, or otherwise, write A = QR where Q is a 4 × 3 matrix with orthonor-
mal columns and R is a 3 × 3 upper triangular matrix with positive entries
along its diagonal.
(The process of writing a matrix in the form described in Part (c) is called the QR
factorization. It is widely used in computer algorithms for various computations
concerning matrices.)
(Learning objectives: To understand and apply the Gram-Schmidt Process and
introduced to QR factorization.)
5. Let U be a subspace of Rn . Define
U ⊥ = {u ∈ Rn | u if orthogonal to U }.
(U ⊥ is called the orthogonal complement of U .)
(a) Show that U ⊥ is a subspace of Rn .
(b) Prove that U ∩ U ⊥ = {0}.
(c) Prove that (U ⊥ )⊥ = U .
(Learning objectives: The orthogonal complement of a subspace (which is a set
of vectors) behaves similarly in many ways to the usual set complement that we
are familiar with.)