Affine Space - Affine Combinations and Affine Dependence

Affine Combinations and Affine Dependence

An affine combination is a linear combination in which the sum of the coefficients is 1. Just as members of a set of vectors are linearly independent if none is a linear combination of the others, so also they are affinely independent if none is an affine combination of the others. The set of linear combinations of a set of vectors is their "linear span" and is always a linear subspace; the set of all affine combinations is their "affine span" and is always an affine subspace. For example, the affine span of a set of two points is the line that contains both; the affine span of a set of three non-collinear points is the plane that contains all three.

Vectors

v1, v2, ..., vn

are linearly dependent if there exist scalars a1, a2, …,an, not all zero, for which

a1v1 + a2v2 + … + anvn = 0

(1)

Similarly they are affinely dependent if in addition the sum of coefficients is zero:

Read more about this topic:  Affine Space

Famous quotes containing the words combinations and/or dependence:

    ...black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black and white, male and female. It’s not so much that women write differently from men, but that black women write differently from white women. Black men don’t write very differently from white men.
    Toni Morrison (b. 1931)

    The invalid is a parasite on society. In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To vegetate on in cowardly dependence on physicians and medicaments after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to entail the profound contempt of society.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)