Vector equation

Vector equation

One extremely helpful view is that each unknown is a weight for a column vector in a linear combination. $${\displaystyle x_{1}{\begin{bmatrix}a_{11}\\a_{21}\\\vdots \\a_{m1}\end{bmatrix}}+x_{2}{\begin{bmatrix}a_{12}\\a_{22}\\\vdots \\a_{m2}\end{bmatrix}}+\dots +x_{n}{\begin{bmatrix}a_{1n}\\a_{2n}\\\vdots \\a_{mn}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}b_{1}\\b_{2}\\\vdots \\b_{m}\end{bmatrix}}}$$ This allows all the language and theory of vector spaces (or more generally, modules) to be brought to bear. For example, the collection of all possible linear combinations of the vectors on the left-hand side (LHS) is called their span, and the equations have a solution just when the right-hand vector is within that span. If every vector within that span has exactly one expression as a linear combination of the given left-hand vectors, then any solution is unique. In any event, the span has a basis of linearly independent vectors that do guarantee exactly one expression; and the number of vectors in that basis (its dimension) cannot be larger than m or n, but it can be smaller. This is important because if we have m independent vectors a solution is guaranteed regardless of the right-hand side (RHS), and otherwise not guaranteed.