BSI-111 Linear Algebra

Dr. Abid Iqbal

Lecture – 1

Topic:
System of Linear Equations

1
Equation

 What is an equation?

An equation statement which inform that the

values of two mathematical expressions are equal.
 What is a mathematical expression?

An expression is a combination of terms that are

combined using mathematical operations.

2
Types of mathematical expressions

 Arithmetic expressions
 Expressions containing only numbers and operators.

 Fractional expressions
 Expressions containing numbers as fractions and operators.

 Algebraic expressions
 Expressions containing numbers and variables and operators.

3
Algebraic expression

 Types of algebraic expressions:

 Monomials: containing only one term e.g. or 2
 Binomials: containing two terms e.g. or
 Trinomials: contain three terms e.g.
 …
 Polynomials are algebraic expressions that are made of
one or combination of monomials.
 Monomials, Binomials, Trinomials etc. all fall under the umbrella
of Polynomials.

4
Linear Equations
 What is a linear equation?
 A linear equation is one where the index (aka power or exponent)
of all variables (x, y, z etc.) is either 1 or 0.

These are all example of

linear equations

 3

 What about the following equations. Are they linear?

5
Non-linear equations

 What are non-linear equations?

 Any equation containing variables (x, y, z etc.) where:
1. variable(s) has/have exponent (power, index etc.) greater than 1,
OR
2. variable(s) is/are argument of exponential,
trigonometric, hyperbolic, or logarithmic function(s)
is classified as a non-linear equation.
  exponent of is greater than 1
  exponent of is greater than 1
  is an argument of a trigonometric function
  it seems linear but its actually non-linear.

6
System of linear equations
 A set/collection of linear equations is called system of
linear equations.
 Example:

System of linear
equations

7
System of linear equations
 Question:
 Let be the cost of an ice cream (Yummy, Hico etc.), and be the
cost of can of soft drink (Coke, Sprite etc.).
 If Behzad buys 2 ice creams, and 2 cans of soft drinks and pays
300 Rupees, can you find out the cost of single ice cream and
cost of single can of soft drink (i.e. find and respectively)?
 We can put the above scenario into a mathematical model
(equation) as following:
So, can you find the
values of and ?

8
System of linear equations
 The answer is NO. We need more information to figure out the
values for and .
 Now let’s say, Asim goes to the same shop and gets 2 ice creams and
1 soft drink for a total of 250 Rupees.

 Now we have more information to work with.

2 𝑥 +2 𝑦 =300 System of linear
2 𝑥 + 𝑦 =25 0 equations
 We can now solve these two equations, to get the answer:

and

9
System of linear equations
 In the previous slide, we solved the unknowns ( and )
using a system of equations.
 We can plot the system of equations on a graph:

2D graph

10
System of linear equations

 We can also plot linear equations in 3-D.

Notice, the graphs of

linear equation in 2D
are straight lines,
while in 3D they are
planes!

3D graph

11
System of linear equations
 The study of linear equations is known ‘Linear Algebra’.
 Linear Algebra is a systematic study of linear equations
and is related to new kind of arithmetic called ‘Arithmetic
of Matrices’.
 Generally, when we talk about system of linear equations
(or simple linear systems) we mean:
 A finite number of linear A system with
equations with finite 3 equations
number of unknowns (x, y, and 3
unknowns
z, w …. etc.)

12
System of linear equations
 In general, a system of m linear equations with n
unknowns is written as:
𝑎 11 𝑥1 +𝑎 1 2 𝑥 2+ ⋯+𝑎 1 𝑛 𝑥 𝑛 =𝑏1
𝑎 21 𝑥1 +𝑎 22 𝑥 2+ ⋯+ 𝑎2 𝑛 𝑥𝑛 =𝑏 2
⋮⋮ ⋮ ⋮
𝑎 𝑚 1 𝑥 1+𝑎 𝑚 2 𝑥 2 +⋯ +𝑎 𝑚𝑛 𝑥 𝑛 =𝑏𝑛

 Where (coefficient) and (constant) are the real numbers.

13
Solution set for linear system
 A solution of a system of linear equations is a list of
values for variables (x, y, z, . . . etc.) that make all of the
equations in the system true simultaneously.

 The solution set of a system of equations is the collection

of all solutions.

 Solving the system means finding all solutions with

formulas involving some number of parameters.

14
Solving linear equations
 Linear algebra involves using a variety of methods for
finding solutions to linear systems.

 One such method if the ‘method of elimination’.

 The aim of the method of elimination is to get a simpler

linear equation (i.e. an equation in one variable).
 The solution of the simpler system is, however, the same as the
original system of linear equations.

15
Method of elimination

 In method of elimination, we find the solution to the

system of linear equations by carrying out the following
operations:
1) Interchange any pair of equations
2) Multiply an equation by a non-zero constant
3) Add or Subtract one equation from another

16
Solving linear systems using
elimination method
 Practice task 1:
 Solve the following system of linear equations
(1)
(2)

 Solution:
The above equations (1) and (2) are equations in two variables. We
need to simplify the equation, so that we end up with a linear
equation in one variable.
How do we do this?  Method of elimination

17
Solving linear systems using
elimination method
- First multiply (1) by 2 and (2) by 9, we get:
(3)
(4)

- Now, by subtracting (4) from (3), we eliminate and end up

getting the following simple linear equation in one variable:
(5)
- By re-arranging (5) we end up with
- By substituting the value of in either (1) or (2), we get
- Hence, the solution to the system of linear equations in Problem
Task 1 is: and

18
Solving linear systems using
elimination method
 Practice task 2:
 Solve the following system of linear equations
(1)
(2)
(3)

 Answer:
 Through the method of elimination; = -1, = -2, and
19
 Try solving the above system of linear equations on your own.
Types of solutions

 A linear system may have either:

 A unique solution,
 No solution at all, or
 Infinitely many solutions

 Consider the following Linear system

(1)
(2)

 The above system does not have any solution. Why is that so?
20
System with no solution

 If we multiply (1) with 2, we get:

(3)

 This is clearly in contradiction with (2)

 i.e. how come be equal to both 9 and 12 at the same time.

 Hence, we say that the system has no solution.

 Another way to look at this is graphically.

21
Consistent and Inconsistent systems

 Graphically; if we plot the two linear equations:

2 𝑥 +3 𝑦 =6 Parallel lines do
4 𝑥 +6 𝑦=9 no intersect.
Hence there is
no solution!

 A linear system that has no solution is called Inconsistent.

 If a system has at least one solution, then we say it is Consistent.

22
System with infinitely many
solutions
 Consider the following linear system
(1)
(2)

 The graph of the system is shown below. What do you

see?

Both equations
4 𝑥 +6 𝑦=12 produce the
2 𝑥 +3 𝑦 =6 exact same line!

23
System with infinite solutions

 How many solutions does the linear system have?

 Infinite solutions, Why?
 Recall from previous examples, a solution to system of
equations is the point, in coordinate system, where all the
lines of equations intersect.
 In the previous example, the lines were coinciding.
 So both lines intersected at infinite points.
 Hence, there are infinite solutions to the system of linear
equations.

24
System with infinite solutions

 Mathematically; Let’s assume that a solution to the

system of equation is at , where is a real number.
 Then what is the value of equal to?
 Substituting in (1), we get:
(1*)
 By re-arranging (1*), we get:

 Thus, the solution to the linear equation is and

25
Graphs of solutions to linear systems

 For a system with 2 unknowns (x and y);

26
Graphs of solutions to linear systems

 For a system with 3 unknowns (x, y, z);

27
Notation for writing solution
 If a linear system has n number of unknowns (i.e. n
variables), then the solution for the system will be a list of
n numbers.
 Example: The system given below has 3 unknowns (, , and )
(1)
(2)
(3)

 The solution for the above system will be a list of 3 numbers,

given as following: 28
To summarize
 A linear equation is an equation in which the unknowns
have an index of 1 or 0.
 A linear system is a set of linear equations.
 A system with at least one solution is consistent.
 A system with no solution is inconsistent.
 A linear system may have:
 Unique solution
 No solution
 Infinitely many solutions

29
 That’s all for today’s lecture

30