theorem for the direct sum of finite dimensional vector spaces
TheoremLet and be subspaces of a finite dimensional vector space
. Then is the direct sum
of and , i.e., ,if and only if and .
Proof. Suppose that . Then, by definition, and .The dimension theorem for subspaces states that
Since the dimension of the zero vector space is zero, we have that
and the first direction of the claim follows.
For the other direction, suppose and . Then thedimension theorem theorem for subspaces implies that
Now is a subspace of with the same dimensionas so,by Theorem 1 on this page (http://planetmath.org/VectorSubspace),. This proves the second direction.