- #1
lo2
- 55
- 0
Homework Statement
I have this span, spanned by these three vectors in R^5:
[itex]\underline{a_1}=
\left( \begin{array}{c}
2 \\
3 \\
1 \\
4 \\
0 \end{array} \right)[/itex]
[itex]\underline{a_2}=
\left( \begin{array}{c}
1 \\
-1 \\
2 \\
4 \\
3 \end{array} \right)[/itex]
[itex]\underline{a_3}=
\left( \begin{array}{c}
3 \\
4 \\
-1 \\
3 \\
5 \end{array} \right)[/itex]
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
Well I thinking about looking at this equation (where A consists of a1, a2 and a3):
Ax=b
And then reduce A to an identity matrix, and where b is just any vector, b = (b1, b2, b3, b4, b5). And then I could decide b so that it is not a solution to this equation, which means it cannot be written as a linear combination of the three a's, which means it is not in the span of these vectors.
So is the correct approach?
And Maple does not seem to want to solve this matrix with all these unknowns, so have you any idea why that is?