Range of a Linear Map Examples 1
Recall from the Range of a Linear Map page that if $T \in \mathcal L (V, W)$ then the range of $T$ denoted $\mathrm{range} (T)$ is the set of vectors $T(v)$ such that $v \in V$, that is:
(1)We noted that $\mathrm{range} (T) \neq \emptyset$ since $0 \in \mathrm{range} (T)$ and we also noted that $\mathrm{range} (T)$ was a subspace of the codomain vector space $W$.
We will now look at some problems regarding the range of a linear map.
Example 1
Let $T \in \mathcal L (V, W)$. Prove that if $V = \mathrm{span} (v_1, v_2, ..., v_n)$ then $\mathrm{range} (T) = \mathrm{span} (T(v_1), T(v_2), ..., T(v_n))$.
Let $V = \mathrm{span} (v_1, v_2, ..., v_n)$. Then any vector $v \in V$ can be written as a linear combination of the vectors in $\{ v_1, v_2, ..., v_n \}$ where $a_1, a_2, ..., a_n \in \mathbb{F}$ as:
(2)Now apply the linear map $T$ to both sides of the equations above to get that:
(3)Now since $\mathrm{range} (T) = \{ T(v) : v \in V$ then from the equation above we have that:
(4)Therefore $\mathrm{range} (T) = \mathrm{span} (T(v_1), T(v_2), ..., T(v_n))$.