Coordinate vector

Let V be a vector space of dimension n over a field F and let

${\displaystyle B=\{b_{1},b_{2},\ldots ,b_{n}\}}$

be an ordered basis for V. Then for every ${\displaystyle v\in V}$ there is a unique linear combination of the basis vectors that equals ${\displaystyle v}$:

${\displaystyle v=\alpha _{1}b_{1}+\alpha _{2}b_{2}+\cdots +\alpha _{n}b_{n}.}$

The coordinate vector of ${\displaystyle v}$ relative to B is the sequence of coordinates

${\displaystyle [v]_{B}=(\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},\ldots ,\alpha _{n}).}$

This is also called the representation of ${\displaystyle v}$ with respect to B, or the B representation of ${\displaystyle v}$. The ${\displaystyle \alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},\ldots ,\alpha _{n}}$ are called the coordinates of ${\displaystyle v}$. The order of the basis becomes important here, since it determines the order in which the coefficients are listed in the coordinate vector.

Coordinate vectors of finite-dimensional vector spaces can be represented by matrices as column or row vectors. In the above notation, one can write

${\displaystyle [v]_{B}={\begin{bmatrix}\alpha _{1}\\\vdots \\\alpha _{n}\end{bmatrix}}}$

and

${\displaystyle [v]_{B}^{T}={\begin{bmatrix}\alpha _{1}&\alpha _{2}&\cdots &\alpha _{n}\end{bmatrix}}}$

where ${\displaystyle [v]_{B}^{T}}$ is the transpose of the matrix ${\displaystyle [v]_{B}}$.

We can mechanize the above transformation by defining a function ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}}$, called the standard representation of V with respect to B, that takes every vector to its coordinate representation: ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}(v)=[v]_{B}}$. Then ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}}$ is a linear transformation from V to Fⁿ. In fact, it is an isomorphism, and its inverse ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}^{-1}:F^{n}\to V}$ is simply

${\displaystyle \phi _{B}^{-1}(\alpha _{1},\ldots ,\alpha _{n})=\alpha _{1}b_{1}+\cdots +\alpha _{n}b_{n}.}$

Alternatively, we could have defined ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}^{-1}}$ to be the above function from the beginning, realized that ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}^{-1}}$ is an isomorphism, and defined ${\displaystyle \phi _{B}}$ to be its inverse.

Let B and C be two different bases of a vector space V, and let us mark with ${\displaystyle \lbrack M\rbrack _{C}^{B}}$ the matrix which has columns consisting of the C representation of basis vectors b₁, b₂, …, b_n:

${\displaystyle \lbrack M\rbrack _{C}^{B}={\begin{bmatrix}\lbrack b_{1}\rbrack _{C}&\cdots &\lbrack b_{n}\rbrack _{C}\end{bmatrix}}}$

This matrix is referred to as the basis transformation matrix from B to C. It can be regarded as an automorphism over ${\displaystyle F^{n}}$. Any vector v represented in B can be transformed to a representation in C as follows:

${\displaystyle \lbrack v\rbrack _{C}=\lbrack M\rbrack _{C}^{B}\lbrack v\rbrack _{B}.}$

Under the transformation of basis, notice that the superscript on the transformation matrix, M, and the subscript on the coordinate vector, v, are the same, and seemingly cancel, leaving the remaining subscript. While this may serve as a memory aid, it is important to note that no such cancellation, or similar mathematical operation, is taking place.

Suppose V is an infinite-dimensional vector space over a field F. If the dimension is κ, then there is some basis of κ elements for V. After an order is chosen, the basis can be considered an ordered basis. The elements of V are finite linear combinations of elements in the basis, which give rise to unique coordinate representations exactly as described before. The only change is that the indexing set for the coordinates is not finite. Since a given vector v is a finite linear combination of basis elements, the only nonzero entries of the coordinate vector for v will be the nonzero coefficients of the linear combination representing v. Thus the coordinate vector for v is zero except in finitely many entries.

The linear transformations between (possibly) infinite-dimensional vector spaces can be modeled, analogously to the finite-dimensional case, with infinite matrices. The special case of the transformations from V into V is described in the full linear ring article.

• Change of basis