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Why rewrite a column vector in terms of standard basis vectors before applying a matrix transformation?

Rewriting a vector as a linear combination of standard basis vectors allows you to use the linearity of the transformation. Instead of computing the full matrix-vector product directly, you can apply the transformation to each basis vector separately (which corresponds to the columns of the matrix) and then combine the results using the original coefficients.

Conditions

  • The vectors are in R3R^3.
  • The coefficients are the coordinates of the vector relative to the standard basis.
  • A is linear: applying it preserves sums and scalar multiples.

Reasoning, step by step

  1. Decompose the input vector into standard basis vectors e1,e2,e3e_1, e_2, e_3 with coefficients c1,c2,c3c_1, c_2, c_3.
  2. Apply the transformation A to each basis vector: A(e1),A(e2),A(e3)A(e_1), A(e_2), A(e_3).
  3. Multiply each transformed basis vector by its corresponding coefficient.
  4. Sum the scaled transformed vectors to get the final result.

Example

The vector [023]\begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 2 \\ 3 \end{bmatrix} is rewritten as 0e1+2e2+3e30e_1 + 2e_2 + 3e_3. Then A(0e1+2e2+3e3)=0A(e1)+2A(e2)+3A(e3)A(0e_1 + 2e_2 + 3e_3) = 0A(e_1) + 2A(e_2) + 3A(e_3). Since A(ei)A(e_i) are the columns of A, this becomes a weighted sum of A's columns.

Common misconceptions

  • After writing a vector as a combination of standard basis vectors, one might incorrectly leave the basis vectors unchanged and only multiply the coefficients.
  • Thinking that this step is necessary for non-linear transformations (it relies on linearity).

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