linear algebra identity

rosk

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Feb 1, 2016
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Hi,
I came across a list of "linear algebra identities" in a book and almost all of them are super obvious, but there's one that I'm having trouble with -- so I don't know if I'm making a dumb mistake or if there's a typo in the book...

Notation note: Below, I use ||a|| to represent the magnitude of vector a

Here's the statement:

Given vectors a and b :
||a||^2 + ||b||^2 = ||a+b||^2


------------

I can picture cases where this statement can be made true -- like if a is <1,0> and b is <0,2> -- in which case it would look just like a standard application of the Pythagorean theorem...

but, as an example, in the case of a being <3,2> and b being <-1, 0> -- wouldn't it be false?

Thanks
 
Hi,
I came across a list of "linear algebra identities" in a book and almost all of them are super obvious, but there's one that I'm having trouble with -- so I don't know if I'm making a dumb mistake or if there's a typo in the book...

Notation note: Below, I use ||a|| to represent the magnitude of vector a

Here's the statement:

Given vectors a and b :
||a||^2 + ||b||^2 = ||a+b||^2


------------

I can picture cases where this statement can be made true -- like if a is <1,0> and b is <0,2> -- in which case it would look just like a standard application of the Pythagorean theorem...

but, as an example, in the case of a being <3,2> and b being <-1, 0> -- wouldn't it be false?

Thanks
Have you heard of the triangle inequality? For example,
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cis515/cis515-11-sl4.pdf
 
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