Linear Algebra
A lot of content summarized from Mark Schmidt’s notes on Linear Algebra
# Notation
Generally column major
- Scalar (1,1): $\alpha$
- Column Vector (m, 1): $\begin{bmatrix}a_1 \\ a_2 \end{bmatrix}$
- Row Vector (1, n): $\begin{bmatrix}a_1 & a_2\end{bmatrix}$
- Matrix (m, n): $\begin{bmatrix}a_{1,1} & a_{2,1} \\ a_{1,2} & a_{2,2}\end{bmatrix}$
# Operations
# Transpose
$(A^T){ij} = (A){ji}$
A matrix is symmetric if $A = A^T$
# Vector Addition
Associative (brackets don’t matter) and commutative (order independent)
$$a + b = \begin{bmatrix}a_1 \\ a_2 \end{bmatrix} + \begin{bmatrix}b_1 \\ b_2 \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}a_1 + b_1 \\ a_2 + b_2 \end{bmatrix}$$
# Scalar Multiplication
Associative (brackets don’t matter) and commutative (order independent)
$$\alpha b = \alpha \begin{bmatrix}b_1 \\ b_2\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}\alpha b_1 \\ \alpha b_2\end{bmatrix}$$
# Inner Product
Between two vectors of the same length, multiply each element together to get a scalar result
$$a^Tb = \sum_{i = 1}^{n}a_ib_i = \gamma$$
A specific version of this is the dot product which can be expressed as the inner product between two vectors, $a \cdot b = a^Tb$
- Commutative: $a^Tb = b^Ta$
- Distributive across addition: $a^T(b+c) = a^Tb + a^Tc$
# Outer Product
Between two vectors of the same length, create a matrix multiplying each combination of elements in each vector.
Given two vectors $u = \begin{bmatrix}u_1 \\ u_2 \\ \vdots \\ u_m \end{bmatrix}$ and $v = \begin{bmatrix}v_1 \\ v_2 \\ \vdots \\ v_n \end{bmatrix}$,
$$u \otimes v = A = \begin{bmatrix}u_1v_1 & u_1v_2 & \dots & u_1v_n\\ u_2v_1 & u_2v_2 & \dots & u_2v_n \\ \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ u_mv_1 & u_mv_2 & \dots & u_mv_n \end{bmatrix}$$
The resulting matrix $A$ is always rank-1.
# Multiplication
In general, we can multiply matrices A and B when the number of columns in A matches the number of rows in B
If A is (m, n) and B is (n, p), then AB is (m, p)
- Associative: $A(BC) = (AB)C$
- Distributive across addition: $A(B + C) = AB + AC$
- Generally not commutative: $AB \neq BA$
- Transposing reverses order: $(AB)^T = B^TA^T$
- Matrix powers don’t change order: $(AB)^2 = ABAB$
- Matrix-vector multiplication always yields a vector: $x^TAy = x^T(Ay) = (Ay)^Tx = y^TA^Tx$
# Properties
# Vector Norm
A scalar measure of a vector’s length
-
$\Vert x \Vert \geq 0$
-
$\Vert x \Vert_2^2 = x^Tx$
-
Euclidean Norm (L2-Norm): $\Vert x \Vert_2 = \sqrt{\sum_{i=1}^n x_i^2}$
- Also note that $\lVert x \rVert^2 = \lVert x \rVert_2^2 = r^Tr = \langle r,r \rangle$
-
Manhattan Distance (L1-Norm): $\Vert x \Vert_1 = |r_1| + |r_2|$
- How many ‘blocks’ you need to traverse
-
L$\infty$-Norm: $\Vert x \Vert_\infty = \max(|r_1|, |r_2|)$
- How many blocks you have to walk in any one dimensions
# Rank
- The dimension of the vector space generated (or spanned) by its columns.
- This corresponds to the number of linearly independent columns of A.
- This minimal set of vectors that span a space is called a basis
# Orthogonal
If for some set of vectors $q$:
- $q_i^Tq_j = 0$, we call $q_i$ and $q_j$ orthogonal
- $q_i^Tq_j = 1$, we call $q_i$ and $q_j$ orthonormal
Inner product of square orthogonal matrices is the identity matrix: $Q^TQ = I = QQ^T$
# Linear Dependence
A vector is linearly dependent on a set of vectors if it can be written as a linear combination of them
$$c = \alpha_1 b_1 + \alpha_2 b_2 + \dots + \alpha_n b_n$$
A set of vectors is linearly dependent if and only if the zero vector can be written as a non-trivial combination of any of the vectors.
A matrix with fully independent columns has full column rank. If this is the case, $Ax = 0$ implies that $x = 0$
# Special Matrices
# Identity Matrix
1’s on the diagonal and 0’s otherwise. $I_n$ denotes an (n,n) identity matrix.
Multiplication by the identity matrix yields the original matrix. Columns of the identity matrix are called elementary vectors.
# Diagonal Matrix
$$D = \begin{bmatrix}d_1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & d_2 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & d_3 \end{bmatrix}$$
# Spaces
# Range (Column-space)
Subspace spanned by the columns of a matrix.
A system $Ax=b$ is solvable if and only if b is in $A$’s column-space
# Subspace
A non-empty subset of vector space that is closed under addition and scalar multiplication
Possible spaces of $\mathbb{R}^3$
- 0 Vector
- Any line or plane through the origin
- All of $\mathbb{R}^3$
We say that the vectors generate or span the subspace when you can reach any point in the subspace through a linear combination of the vectors.
# Matrices as transformation
Viewing $Ax = T(x)$
A linear transformation can’t move the origin. But, if there are linearly dependent columns, there are non-zero vectors that can be transformed to zero. The set of vectors that can be transformed to 0 is called the null-space.
Null space: $\mathcal N (A)$ is all $x$ such that $Ax = 0$
# Fundamental Theorem of Linear Algebra
- $r$ is the dimension of the column-space which is the same as the dimension of the row-space
- The null-space is orthogonal to the row-space
# Inverses
We can find the inverses if and only if A is square and doesn’t have null-space outside of the zero vector (otherwise we either lose information to the null-space or can’t get to all vectors)
If the inverse exists, it is a unique matrix such that $A^{-1}A = I = AA^{-1}$
Some identities
- $(A^{-1})^T = (A^T)^{-1}$
- $(\gamma A)^{-1} = \gamma^{-1} A^{-1}$
- Assuming both $A^{-1}$ and $B^{-1}$ exist, $(AB)^{-1} = B^{-1}A^{-1}$
Special inverses of diagonal matrices
$$D=\begin{bmatrix}d_1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & d_2 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & d_3 \end{bmatrix}$$
$$D^{^-1}=\begin{bmatrix}1/d_1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 1/d_2 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1/d_3 \end{bmatrix}$$
# Solving Linear Equations
Given A and b, we want to solve for x in $Ax = b$
Say, $\begin{bmatrix}2 & -1 \\ 1 & 1\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}x \\ y\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}1 \\ 5\end{bmatrix}$.
We can interpret this multiple ways:
- By rows: $x$ is the intersection of the hyperplanes $2x-y=1$ and $x+y=5$
- By columns: $x$ is the linear combination that yields the RHS in $x\begin{bmatrix}2 \\ 5\end{bmatrix} + y \begin{bmatrix}-1 \\ 1\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}1 \\ 5 \end{bmatrix}$
- Transformation
$Ax=b$ generally has a solution when $b$ is in the column-space of A. It has a single unique solution if the columns of A are linearly independent.
If $Ax=b$ has as solution we say it is consistent.
Basically, $x = A^{-1}b$
We can solve using Gaussian Elimination