The Matrix of a Linear Map Examples 1
Recall from The Matrix of a Linear Map page that if $V$ and $W$ are both finite-dimensional vector spaces such that $\mathrm{dim} (V) = n$ and $\mathrm{dim} (W) = m$ and where $B_V = \{ v_1, v_2, ..., v_n \}$ is a basis of $V$ and $B_W = \{ w_1, w_2, ..., w_m \}$ is a basis of $W$, then for $T \in \mathcal L (V, W)$ being such that $T(v_k) = a_{1,k}w_1 + a_{2,k}w_2 + ... + a_{m,k}w_m$ for each $k = 1, 2, ..., n$ then the matrix of $T$ with respect to the bases $B_V$ and $B_W$ is:
(1)We will now look at some examples regarding matrices representing linear maps.
Example 1
Consider the linear map $T \in \mathcal L (\wp_2 (\mathbb{R}), \mathbb{R}^2)$ defined by $T(p(x)) = \left (2p(1) + 3p'(1), \int_0^1 p(x) \: dx \right )$. Let $B_V \{ 1, x, x^2 \}$ be a basis of $\wp_2 (\mathbb{R})$ and let $B_W = \{(1, 0), (0, 2) \}$ be a basis of $W$. Determine the matrix $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$.
To find the matrix $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$ we must apply $T$ to vector in the basis of $V$. We will have that:
(2)We now need to write these images as linear combinations of the basis vectors in $B_W \{ (1, 0), (0, 2) \}$:
(5)The coefficients in the linear combinations above form our matrix. We have that:
(8)Example 2
Let $V$ and $W$ both be finite-dimensional vector spaces and let $T \in \mathcal L (V, W)$. Prove that for any choice of basis $B_V$ of $V$ and any choice of basis $B_W$ of $W$ that the matrix $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$ has at least $\mathrm{dim} (\mathrm{range} (T))$ nonzero entries.
Let $\mathrm{dim} (V) = n$ and let $\mathrm{dim} (W) = m$. Let $B_V = \{ v_1, v_2, ..., v_n \}$ be a basis of $V$ and let $B_W = \{ w_1, w_2, ..., w_m \}$ be a basis of $W$. Also let $T \in \mathcal L (V, W)$.
Let's instead assume that $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$ has at most $\mathrm{dim} (\mathrm{range} (T)) - 1$ nonzero entries. Then there are at most $\mathrm{dim} ( \mathrm{range} (T)) - 1$ nonzero vectors amongst:
(9)Therefore $\mathrm{dim} (\mathrm{span} (T(v_1), T(v_2), ..., T(v_n)) ≤ \mathrm{dim} ( \mathrm{range} (T)) - 1$. However, we have that $\mathrm{range} (T) = \mathrm{span} (T(v_1), T(v_2), ..., T(v_n))$ and so:
(10)This is a contradiction though, so our assumption that $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$ has at most $\mathrm{dim}(\mathrm{range} (T)) - 1$ nonzetro entries is false.
Therefore $\mathcal M (T, B_V, B_W)$ has at least $\mathrm{dim} (\mathrm{range} (T))$ nonzero entries.