Dr. Mark V. Sapir

Subspaces

Let V be a vector space. A subset W of V is called a subspace of V if W is closed under addition and scalar multiplication, that is if for every vectors A and B in W the sum A+B belongs to W and for every vector A in W and every scalar k, the product kA belongs to W.

Positive Examples.

1. The whole space Rⁿ is a subspace of itself. And the set consisting of one vector, 0, is a subspace of any space.

2. In R², consider the set W of all vectors which are parallel to a given line L. It is clear that the sum of two vectors which are parallel to L is itself parallel to L, and a scalar multiple of a vector which is parallel to L is itself parallel to L. Thus W is a subspace.

3. A similar argument shows that in R³, the set W of all vectors which are parallel to a given plane (line) is a subspace.

4. The set of all polynomials is a subspace of the space of continuous functions on [0,1], C[0,1]. The set of all polynomials whose degrees do not exceed a given number, is a subspace of the vector space of polynomials, and a subspace of C[0,1].

5. The set of differentiable functions is also a subspace of C[0,1].

Negative Examples.

1. In R², the set of all vectors which are parallel to one of two fixed non-parallel lines, is not a subspace. Indeed, if we take a non-zero vector parallel to one of the lines and add a non-zero vector parallel to another line, we get a vector which is parallel to neither of these lines.

2. The set of polynomials of degree 2 is not a subspace of C[0,1]. Indeed, the sum of x²+x and -x² is a polynomial of degree 1.

Theorem. Every subspace W of a vector space V is itself a vector space with the same operations as V. Every subspace of a Euclidean vector space is itself a Euclidean vector space.

Indeed, all axioms of a vector space hold for any subspace of the vector space and the dot product holds for any subset of a Euclidean vector space.

Sources of subspaces: kernels and ranges of linear transformations

Let T be a linear transformation from a vector space V to a vector space W. Then the kernel of T is the set of all vectors A in V such that T(A)=0, that is

The range of T is the set of all vectors in W which are images of some vectors in V, that is

Notice that the kernel of a transformation from V to W is a subset of V and the range is a subset of W. For example if T is a transformation from the space of functions to the space of real numbers then the kernel must consist of functions and the range must consist of numbers.

Examples.

1. Let P be the projection of R² on a line L from R². Then the kernel of P is the set of all vectors in R² which are perpendicular to L and the range of P is the set of all vectors parallel to L.

Indeed, the vectors which are perpendicular to L and only these vectors are annihilated by the projection. This proves the statement about the kernel. The projection on L of every vector is parallel to L (by the definition of projection) and conversely, every vector which is parallel to L is the projection of some vector from R², for example, it is the projection of itself. This proves the statement about the range.

2. Let R be the rotation of R² through angle Pi/3; counterclockwise. Then the kernel of R is 0 (no non-zero vectors are annihilated by the rotation). The range of the rotation is the whole R². Indeed, for every vector W in R² let V be the vector obtained by rotating W through angle Pi/3; clockwise. Then W is the result of rotating V through Pi/3 counterclockwise, thus W is in the range of our transformation. Since W was an arbitrary vector in R², the range of the rotation is the whole R².

3. Let R be the reflection of R² about a line L. Then the kernel of R is 0. Indeed, no non-zero vectors are annihilated by the reflection. The range is the whole R² (prove it!).

4. Let Z be the zero transformation from V to W which takes every vector in V to the zero of W. Then the kernel of Z is V and the range is {0} (prove it!).

5. Let T be the linear operator of the vector space of P polynomials which takes every polynomial to its derivative. Then the range of T is the whole P (every polynomial is a derivative of another polynomial) and the kernel of T is the set of all constants (prove it!).

6. Let T be the linear operator on the space P of polynomials which takes every polynomial g(x) to the polynomial ∫g(t) dt as t=0..x (integral from 0 to x of T(t)). Then the range of T is the set of all polynomials h(x) such that h(0)=0 (every such polynomial is the image under T of its derivative) and the kernel of T is 0 (the only function with 0 anti-derivative is 0).

7. Let T be the linear transformation from the space of all n by n matrices M to R which takes every matrix to its trace. Then the range of T is the whole R (every number is the trace of some matrix) and the kernel consists of all n by n matrices with zero trace.

Theorem. Let T be a linear transformation from V to W. Then ker(T) is a subspace of V and range(T) is a subspace of W.

Proof. We need to prove that ker(T) is closed under addition and scalar multiplication. Let A and B be elements from ker(T). Then T(A)=0 and T(B)=0 (the definition of a kernel). Hence T(A)+T(B)=0+0=0. But T is a linear transformation, so T(A)+T(B)=T(A+B). Hence T(A+B)=0. By the definition of a kernel this implies that A+B is in ker(T). Thus ker(T) is closed under taking sums.

Now let A be an element of ker(T) and let k be a number. Since A is in ker(T), T(A)=0. Then kT(A)=k0=0 (prove the last equality!). On the other hand, since T is a linear transformation, kT(A)=T(kA). So T(kA)=0, whence kA is in ker(T). This shows that ker(T) is closed under scalar multiplication.

The proof that range(T) is a subspace is left as an exercise.

We shall show later that every subspace of a vector space is a kernel of some linear transformation and the range of some other linear transformation.

Example.
Let E be the subspace of R³ consisting of vectors which are parallel to a plane P. Then E is the kernel of the projection of R³ on the line perpendicular to the plane and E is the range of the projection on the plane P.

The theorem about kernel and ranges implies the following important property of homogeneous systems of linear equations.

Theorem. Let Av=0 be a homogeneous systems of linear equations with n unknowns and m equations. Then the set of solutions of this system coincides with the kernel of the linear transformation T_A from Rⁿ to R^m with standard matrix A and so it is a subspace of Rⁿ.

Indeed the set of solutions of the system Av=0 is precisely the set of vectors annihilated by the linear transformation T_A.

Sources of subspaces: subspaces spanned by vectors

Let V be a vector space and let S be a subset of V. A linear combination of distinct elements s₁,...,s_n of S with coefficients x₁,...,x_n is the vector

Theorem. Let S be a subset of a vector space V. Then:

1. The set W of all linear combinations of elements of S is a subspace of V.
2. W is the smallest subspace of V containing S in the sense that every other subspace of V containing S must contain W.

Proof. 1. Let us use the definition of subspaces. We need to prove that the set W of all linear combinations of elements from S is closed under sums and scalar multiples. Let w₁=x₁s₁+...+x_ns_n and w₂=y₁s'₁+...+y_ms'_m be arbitrary two linear combinations of elements from S. Then the sum w₁+w₂ is equal to x₁s₁+...+x_ns_n+y₁s'₁+...+y_ms'_m which is again a linear combination of elements from S. Thus the sum of any two elements of W is an element of W and W is closed under taking sums.

Now take an arbitrary linear combination w=x₁s₁+...x_ns_n of elements in S and an arbitrary number k. Then the product kw is equal to kx₁s₁+...+kx_ns_n (we used the distributivity of scalar multiplication with respect to addition in vector spaces) which is again a linear combination of elements of S. Thus W is closed under scalar multiplication.

2. Let U be any subspace of the vector space V which contains S. By the definition of subspaces U is closed under taking sums and scalar multiples. Therefore U contains all linear combinations of elements of S (which are sums of scalar multiples of elements of S), so U contains W. Thus W is the smallest subspace of V containing S. The theorem is proved.

Let W be a subspace of V. We say that W is spanned by a set of vectors S={A₁,A₂,...} if a) S is contained in W and b) every vector in W is a linear combination of vectors from S. In this case we write W=span(S) or W=span{A₁,A₂,...}.

Examples.
1. Let V=R³. Let S consist of one non-zero vector A. Then span{A} consists of all vectors of the form xA. In other words, span{A} consists of all vectors which are proportional to A, or span(A) is the set of vector parallel to A.

2. Let V=R³, S={(1,0,0), (0,1,0)}. Then span(S) consists of all vectors of the form x(1,0,0)+y(0,1,0)=(x,y,0), that is span(S) consists of all vectors parallel to the (x,y)-plane. More generally, if we take any two non-parallel vectors A and B in R³ then span{A,B} is the subspace of all vectors which are parallel to the plane containing A and B.

3. Let V=R³, S={(1,0,0), (0,1,0), (0,0,1)}. Then span(S) coincides with the whole R³. More generally if V=Rⁿ then V is spanned by the set of basic vectors {(1,0,...,0), (0,1,...,0), ...,(0,0,...,1)}.

4. Let T be the linear transformation from R³ to R² with standard matrix

Thus the general solution is the following:

					      x = -1/2t
					      y = -5/4t
					      z = t

Or in the vector notation:

Thus the kernel of T is spanned by the vector (-1/2,-5/4,1). Likewise the general solution of any homogeneous system of linear equations with matrix of coefficients A gives us a system of vectors which span the kernel of the corresponding linear transformation. This subspace is usually called the null space of matrix A.

5. Let T be a linear transformation from Rⁿ to R^m with standard matrix A. Then the range of T consists of all vectors b=(b₁,...,b_m) in R^m which are expressible in the form Av where V=(x₁,...,x_n) is in Rⁿ:

or in the vector form:

where c₁, ..., c_n are column vectors of matrix A. Thus vector B in R^m belongs to range(T) if and only if it is a linear combination of the column vectors of A. Therefore range(T) is spanned by these column vectors. The subspace range(T) is usually called the column space of matrix A.

Every subspace W of any vector space V is spanned by some set of vectors S. Indeed, one can take the whole W to be S. One of the main problems in the theory of vector spaces is for every subspace W find a minimal set of vectors S that spans W.

It is clear, for example, that the space R³ can be spanned by 3 vectors (in fact it is spanned by any 3 vectors which are not parallel to the same plane) and cannot be spanned by 2 vectors. The subspace of R³ consisting of all vectors parallel to a given plane can be spanned by two non-parallel vectors and cannot be spanned by one vector and so on.

Thus a subspace of a vector space can be spanned by many sets of vectors. The next theorem answers the question of when two sets of vectors span the same subspace.

Theorem. Two subsets S₁ and S₂ of a vector space V span the same subspace if and only if every vector of S₁ is a linear combination of vectors of S₂ and every vector of S₂ is a linear combination of vectors of S₁.

The proof is left as an exercise.

Examples.
1. Vectors a=(1,2,3), b=(0,1,2), and c=(0,0,1) span R³. Indeed, we know that R³ is spanned by the vectors i=(1,0,0), j=(0,1,0) and k=(0,0,1). Thus we need to show that the sets {a,b,c} and {i,j,k} span the same subspace. By the previous theorem, we need to show that every vector from the first subset is a linear combination of vectors from the second subset and conversely every vector from the second subset is a linear combination of vectors of the first subset.

It is clear that a, b, c are linear combinations of i, j, k (as any vector in R³). So we need to show only that i, j, k are linear combinations of a, b, c. This is easy to check:

2. Polynomials f₁=x²+2x+1, f₂=x+1 and f₃=x+2 in the space of all polynomials P span the subspace P₂ of all polynomials of degree not exceeding 2. Indeed, it is clear that P₂ is spanned by the polynomials p₁=1, p₂=x and p₃=x². So we need to show that the sets {f₁, f₂, f₃} and {p₁, p₂, p₃} span the same subspace. It is clear that f₁, f₂, f₃ are linear combinations of p₁, p₂, p₃. Conversely, it is easy to check that

3. Let a=(1,2,3,4), b=(3, -1, 5, 2), c=(-1, 2, 0, 1), d=(2, 1, 4, 5). Determine whether span{a,b}=span{c,d}. We need to check if a and b are linear combinations of vectors c and d, and whether c and d are linear combinations of vectors a and b.

By definition of a linear combination, the vector a is a linear combination of c and d if there exist x and y such that

This gives the following system of linear equations:

					   1  =  -x + 2y
					   2  =  2x +  y
					   3  =  0x + 4y
					   4  =   x + 5y

This system does not have a solution, so a is not a linear combination of c and d, so span{a,b} is not equal to span{c,d}.

4. Is it true that the range of the linear transformation T from R⁵ to R³ with the following standard matrix:

coincides with the whole R³?

We know that the range of a linear transformation from R^m to Rⁿ is spanned by the column-vectors of its standard matrix. Thus the range of T is spanned by the following vectors: t₁=(2,1,2), t₂=(3,2,1), t₃=(4,3,2), t₄=(5,1,3), t₅=(5,2,3).

We need to check whether the subspace of R³ spanned by these vectors coincides with the whole R³. We know that R³ is spanned by the vectors i=(1,0,0), j=(0,1,0) and k=(0,0,1). So we can apply the theorem about spans.

It is clear that each vector t_i (i=1,2,3,4,5) is a linear combination of i, j ,k. So it remains to check whether i, j, k are linear combinations of t₁,...,t₅. So we need to solve the following three systems of linear equations:

These systems have the same matrices of coefficients and different right sides, so we can solve these systems simultaneously. Consider the combined augmented matrix:

Applying the Gauss-Jordan elimination procedure, we get:

Therefore each of the three systems of equations has infinitely many solutions (the unknowns x₄ and x₅ are free in each of these systems). Thus the range of T coincides with R³.

Linearly independent sets of vectors

As we said before, every subspace W of any vector space V is spanned by some set of vectors S. Our goal is to find a minimal set S such that W=span(S).

The next theorem shows that in some cases a set S which spanned a subspace W can be made smaller by throwing away extra elements.

Theorem. Let S be a subset of a vector space V and let a be an element in S which is equal to a linear combination of other elements of S. Let S' be the set obtained by removing a from S. Then span(S)=span(S').

This theorem implies that if S is the smallest subset of a subspace W which spans W then no element of S is a linear combination of other elements of S.

This leads to the following definition. A subset S of a vector space V is called linearly independent if no element of S is a linear combination of other elements of S.

This definition gives an algorithm to check whether a subset S is linearly independent. But this algorithm is very slow: one needs to check whether every element in S is a linear combination of other elements in S. The following theorem gives a much faster algorithm.

Theorem. a subset S of a vector space V is linearly independent if and only if there exists exactly one linear combination of elements of S which is equal to 0, the one with all zero coefficients.

Notice that if a subset of a set S is linearly dependent then the whole set is linearly dependent (the proof is an exercise).

Examples.
1. Every two vectors in the line R are linearly dependent (one vector is proportional to the other one).

2. Every three vectors a,b,c on a plane R² are linearly dependent. Indeed, if a and b are parallel then one of them is a multiple of another one, and so a and b are linearly dependent which implies that all three vectors are linearly dependent. If a and b are not parallel then from Calculus 3 we know that every vector on the plane, including the vector c, is a linear combination of a and b. Thus a,b,c are linearly dependent.

3. If a subset S of Rⁿ consists of more than n vectors then S is linearly dependent. ( Prove it!)

4. The set of polynomials x+1, x²+x+1, x²-2x-2, x²-3x+1 is linearly dependent. To prove that we need to find numbers a, b, c, d not all equal to 0 such that

Theorem.
1. If a subset S of a vector space V contains 0 then S is linearly dependent.

2. A set S with exactly two vectors is linearly dependent if and only if one of these vectors is a scalar multiple of the other.

The proof is left as an exercise.

Let f₁, f₂,...,f_n be functions in C[0,1] each of which has first n-1 derivatives. The determinant of the following matrix

Theorem. Let f₁, f₂,...,f_n be functions in C[0,1] each of which has first n-1 derivatives. If the Wronskian of this set of functions is not identically zero then the set of functions is linearly independent.

Examples of Using Wronskians

Basis and dimension

We know that the set of vectors V₁=(1,0,...,0), V₂=(0,1,...,0), ..., V_n=(0,...,1) in Rⁿ is linearly independent and such that every vector in Rⁿ is (uniquely) expressible as a linear combination of these vectors. We called these vectors basic because of this property. In this section we will generalize the concept of basis to arbitrary vector spaces.

A set S of vectors in a vector space V is called a basis if

1. S is linearly independent and
2. V=span(S), that is every vector in V is a linear combination of vectors in S.

Positive examples.

1. The set of vectors V₁,...,V_n mentioned above is a basis of Rⁿ.
2. The set of vectors (1,2), (2,3) is a basis of R².

   Indeed, these vectors are linearly independent because they are not proportional. In order to check that R² is spanned by these vectors, it is enough to check that (1,0) and (0,1) are linear combinations of them (theorem about spans):

   (1,0)=-3*(1,2)+2*(2,3);
   (0,1)=2*(1,2)-(2,3).
   

   

   In fact, every two non-parallel vectors in the plane R² form a basis of R².

3. The set of polynomials 1, x, x² is a basis of the space of polynomials of degree at most 2.
4. The set of functions x, e^x, e^2x is a basis of the subspace V of C[0,1] spanned by these functions. Indeed, these functions are linearly independent (Class 27 homework) and V is spanned by these functions by the definition of V.
5. The set of matrices:

   [ 1 0 ] [ 0 0 ]

   ,

   [ 0 1 ] [ 0 0 ]

   ,

   [ 0 0 ] [ 1 0 ]

   ,

   [ 0 0 ] [ 0 1 ]

   
   is a basis of the space of all 2 by 2 matrices.
   First we need to prove that these matrices are linearly independent. Indeed, if we take a linear combination of these matrices with coefficients a,b,c,d, we get the matrix
   

   [ a	b ]
   [ c	d ]

   This matrix is equal to the zero matrix only if a=b=c=d=0.
   

   Second, we need to show that these 4 matrices span the space of all 2 by 2 matrices. Indeed, every 2 by 2 matrix
   

   [ a	b ]
   [ c	d ]

   
   

   is the linear combination of our four matrices with coefficients a, b, c, d.
   

Negative examples

1. The set of two vectors u=(1,2,3) and v=(2,3,4) is not a basis of R³. Indeed, although these vectors are linearly independent, they do not span R³. For example, the vector (1,0,0) is not equal to a linear combination of u and v.
2. The set of four vectors u=(1,2,3), i=(1,0,0), j=(0,1,0), k=(0,0,1) is not a basis of R³. Indeed, although these vectors span R³ (even i, j, k span R³), these vectors are not linearly independent because u=i+2j+3k.
3. The set of functions u=sin(x), v=cos(x), w=x is not a basis of C[0,1] because the function e^x does not belong to the span{u,v,w} ( prove it using the Wronskian).

   In fact C[0,1] does not have a finite basis at all.

Theorem. Let V be a vector space. The following properties of bases of V hold:

1. If S is a basis of a vector space V then every vector in V has exactly one representation as a linear combination of elements of S.
2. If V has a basis with n elements then
   1. Every set of vectors in V which has more than n elements is linearly dependent.
   2. Every set of vectors with fewer than n elements does not span V.
3. All bases of V have the same number of elements.

The first statement of this theorem allows us to introduce the following definition.
Let S be a basis of a vector space V and let a be a vector from V. Then a is uniquely representable as a linear combination of elements from S. The coefficients of this linear conbination are called the coordinates of a in the basis S.

Example.
Vectors (1,2) and (2,3) form a basis of R² (we have shown it before). The vector (4,7) is equal to the linear combination 2*(1,2)+(2,3). Thus the vector (4,7) has coordinates 2, 1 in the basis of vectors (1,2) and (2,3). The same vector has coordinates 4 and 7 in the basis of vectors (1,0) and (0,1). Thus a vector has different coordinates in different bases. It is sometimes very important to find a basis where the vectors you are dealing with have the simplest possible coordinates.

The last condition of the theorem about bases allows us to introduce the following important definition.

A dimension of a vector space V (denoted by dim(V) ), is the number of elements in a basis for V. There is one exception of this definition: the dimension of the zero space (the vector space consisting of one vector, zero) is defined to be 0 and not 1.

Theorem.

1. If V is an n-dimension space and S is a set of n elements from V. Then S is a basis of V in each of the following cases:
   • S spans V.
   • S is linearly independent.
2. If S is a linearly dependent set in an n-dimensional space V and V=span(S) then by removing some elements of S we can get a basis of V.
3. If S is a linearly independent subset of V which is not a basis of V then we can get a basis of V by adding some elements to S.

Examples.
1. Consider the following 5 vectors in R⁴: (1,2,3,4), (1,1,0,0), (1,2,1,0),(0,1,2,3), (1,0,0,0). It can be shown (check!) that these vectors span R⁴. Since R⁴ is 4-dimensional (it has the standard basis with 4 vectors), these 5 vectors must be linearly dependent by the theorem about bases. By the theorem about dimension we can through away one of these vectors and get a basis of R⁴. By the theorem about throwing away extra elements from a spanning set, we can through away a vector which is a linear combination of other vectors in the set. Let us check that the vector (1,2,3,4) is such a vector. In order to find the linear combination which is equal to this vector, we need to solve the system of linear equation:

This system of equations has the following augmented matrix:

2. Take two vectors (1,2,3,4), (2,1,1,1) in R⁴. These vectors are linearly independent because they are not proportional (see the theorem about linearly dependent sets). Thus by the theorem about dimension we can add two vectors and get a basis of R⁴. Let us add (1,0,0,0) and (0,1,0,0). Notice that when we add vectors we need to make sure that the added vectors are not linear combinations of the previous vectors. In order to check that the four vectors (1,2,3,4), (2,1,1,1), (1,0,0,0), (0,1,0,0) form a basis of R⁴, we need to check only that they are linearly independent, that is the system of equations:

has only one, trivial, solution (see the theorem about dimension).

This is an homogeneous system with 4 equations and 4 unknowns. We know that this system has only one solution if and only if the matrix of coefficients is invertible (see the second theorem about inverses). And we know that a square matrix is invertible if and only if its determinant is not zero (see the third theorem about determinants). Thus we need to check that the determinant of the matrix of coefficients of our system is not zero. Maple says that

3. Let us prove that the space of functions C[0,1] is not finite dimensional.

By contradiction, suppose that C[0,1] has a finite dimension n. Consider the set of n+1 functions 1, x, x²,..., xⁿ. It is easy to check that the Wronskian of this set of functions is non-zero (the matrix of derivatives is upper triangular). Thus by the theorem about Wronskian, this set of functions is linearly independent. This contradicts statement 2.1 of the theorem about bases: if a vector space is n-dimensional then every set of more than n vectors in this vector space is linearly dependent.

4. Using the theorems about bases and dimension, one can simplify solutions of several problems considered before. For example, let us prove that the range of the linear transformation from R⁵ to R² with the following standard matrix:

Rank of a matrix

Let S be a set of vectors in a vector space. Then the dimension of the vector space spanned by S is called the rank of S.

If A is a matrix then the rank of the set of its columns is called the column rank of A and the rank of the set of its rows is called the row rank of A.

We shall prove that the column rank of A is equal to the row rank of A for every matrix a.

First suppose that A has the reduced row echelon form. It is easy to see that the rows containing leading 1's are linearly independent (see an example below). Other rows are zero vectors. So the rank of the set of rows of A is equal to the number of leading 1's (=the number of rows containing leading 1's).

Example. Consider the following matrix:

Let us check that the rows containing the leading 1's are linearly independent. Let us denote the rows by r₁, r₂, r₃. Suppose that a linear combination x₁r₁ + x₂r₂ +x₃r₃ is equal to zero. Consider the coordinates of this linear combination which correspond to the leading 1's (i.e. the first, the third and the fifth coordinates). The first coordinate of this liner combination is x₁+0+0=x₁. So x₁=0. The third coordinate is equal to 0+x₂+0=x₂, so x₂=0. The fifth coordinate is equal to 0+0+x₃=x₃, so x₃=0. Thus x₁=x₂=x₃=0, so by the theorem about linearly independent sets of vectors, r₁, r₂ and r₃ are linearly independent.

It is also clear that the columns containing leading 1's are linearly independent (they are just the standard basic vectors) and other columns are linear combinations of the columns containing the leading 1's. So the column rank of A is also equal to the number of leading 1's in the matrix.

Example. In the case of the previous matrix the columns containing the leading 1's are

Thus the column rank and the row rank coincide in the case of reduced row echelon matrices.

Theorem. The column rank and the row rank of every matrix coincide, are equal to the (row) rank of the reduced row echelon form of this matrix, and are equal to the number of leading 1's in this reduced row echelon form.

Let S be a set of vectors in a vector space V. We call a subset T of S a core of S if T is linearly independent and every element of S is a linear combination of elements of T. It is clear that the number of elements in the core is the rank of S and that the core is a basis of span(S).

Theorem. In order to find a core of the set of columns of a matrix A, one can reduce A to the reduced row echelon form A'. Then the columns in A corresponding to the leading 1's in A' form a core of the set of columns.

This theorem tells us how to find a basis of the column space of an m by n matrix A. In order to find a basis of the null space one needs to find the general solution of the system Av=0 which as we know form a subspace of the vector space Rⁿ and find the vectors spanning this vector space. The number of these vectors is the number of free unknowns and it is easy to see that they are linearly independent. Thus the dimension of the null space is equal to the number of free unknowns of the system Av=0. This implies the following result.

Theorem. For every matrix A the dimension of the column space plus the dimension of the null space is equal to the number of columns of A. In terms of linear transformations this sounds as follows. If T is a linear transformation from R^m to Rⁿ then dim(range(T))+dim(kernel(T))=m.