2025-04-27

1089: For Finite-Dimensional Vectors Space with Inner Product and Vectors Subspace, Set of Vectors Normal to Subspace Is Complementary-Dimensional Vectors Subspace

<The previous article in this series | The table of contents of this series | The next article in this series>

description/proof of that for finite-dimensional vectors space with inner product and vectors subspace, set of vectors normal to subspace is complementary-dimensional vectors subspace

Topics


About: vectors space

The table of contents of this article


Starting Context



Target Context


  • The reader will have a description and a proof of the proposition that for any finite-dimensional vectors space with any inner product and any vectors subspace, the set of the vectors normal to the subspace is a complementary-dimensional vectors subspace.

Orientation


There is a list of definitions discussed so far in this site.

There is a list of propositions discussed so far in this site.


Main Body


1: Structured Description


Here is the rules of Structured Description.

Entities:
F: {R,C}, with the canonical field structure
V: { the d -dimensional F vectors spaces }, with any inner product, ,
V: { the d -dimensional vectors subspaces of V}
S: ={sV|vV(s,v=0)}
//

Statements:
S{ the (dd) -dimensional vectors subspaces of V}
//


2: Proof


Whole Strategy: Step 1: take an orthonormal basis for V and expand it to an orthonormal basis for V, and see that S is nothing but the vectors subspace spanned by the complementary elements of the V basis.

Step 1:

As V is a d-dimensional F vectors space, there is a basis for V, B={b1,...,bd}.

B can be orthonormalized with respect to the inner product for V to B~={b1~,...,bd~} by the Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization: b1~=b1/b1,b1; b2~=(b2b2,b1~b1~)/b2b2,b1~b1~,b2b2,b1~b1~; ....

B~ is linearly independent on V: if vjbj~=0 had a not-all-0 {v1,...,vd}F, B~ would not be linearly independent on V.

B~ can be expanded to be a basis for V, B={b1~,...,bd~,bd+1,...,bd}, by the proposition that for any finite-dimensional vectors space, any linearly independent subset can be expanded to be a basis by adding a finite number of elements.

B can be orthonormalized to B~={b1~,...,bd~,bd+1~,...,bd~} by the Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization: the B~ part is not changed by the orthonormalization.

Now, let us see that the F vectors space spanned by {bd+1~,...,bd~}, W, is nothing but S.

For each sS, s=j{1,...,d}sjbj~, because sV. But for each l{1,...,d}, s,bl~=0, where the left hand side is j{1,...,d}sjbj~,bl~=j{1,...,d}sjbj~,bl~=j{1,...,d}sjδj,l=sl. So, sl=0, which means that sW.

For each wW, w=j{d+1,...,d}wjbj~. For each vV, v=l{1,...,d}vlbl~, and w,v=j{d+1,...,d}wjbj~,l{1,...,d}vlbj~=j{d+1,...,d}wjl{1,...,d}vlbj~,bl~=0, which means that wS.

So, S=W, the (dd)-dimensional vectors subspace of V with the basis, B~B~.


References


<The previous article in this series | The table of contents of this series | The next article in this series>