Determine whether or not a linear transformation is invertible

linear algebralinear-transformationssolution-verification

i am considering a number of linear transformations that look like the one below.

$T:R^2 \mapsto R^3, T(a_1,a_2)=(a_1-2a_2,a_2,3a_1+4a_2)$

i want to say that $T$ isn't invertible because $rank(T)=3\neq dim(V)=2$.

i.e., since the domain and codomain have different dimensions, $T$ isn't invertible.

is this enough?

Best Answer

The idea is correct, but not the computations. What happens is that$$\operatorname{rank}T=2\neq\dim\mathbb R^3=3.$$More generally, no linear map $f$ from a vector space with dimension $n$ into a vector space $V$ with dimension $m>n$ can be impossible, since$$\operatorname{rank}f\leqslant n<m=\dim V.$$