A basis of polynomials

edited October 2019 in Problems

Show that the set
$$
\{x^2 - 3, 2 - x, (x - 1)^2 \}
$$
forms a basis for the vector space of polynomials of degree at most 2.

Comments

  • edited October 2019

    Writing the elements of this set as coordinate vectors, and using those vectors as columns of a matrix gives us:
    $$\left(\begin{matrix}-3 & 2 & 1 \\ 0 & -1 & -2 \\ 1 & 0 & 1 \end{matrix}\right).$$

    I contend that this matrix row reduces to the identity matrix, thus it is non-singular, thus the columns are linearly independent, thus the elements of the set given are linearly independent.

    Proof that this set spans $P_2$ is left as an exercise for the reader.

    mark
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