Is the following statement is True false regarding inner product

linear algebra

Is the following statement is True false

Let $V = \mathbb{R}^5$ be equipped with the usual euclidean inner-product.
If $W$ and $Z$ are subspaces of $V$ such that both of them are of dimension
$3,$ then there exists $z \in Z$ such that $z \neq 0$ and $z ⊥ W.$

My attempt : i thinks this statement is True take $W= (1,-1,1)$ and $Z=(-1,1,-1)$ the $Z ⊥ W$ that is $\langle Z. W\rangle=0$

Is my thinking is correct or not ?

Any hints/solution will be appreciated

Best Answer

No, it is false, it needs further assumptions, also as stated in the comments, be aware that we are talking subspaces here, not vectors! for example (as gandalf61 said) take $Z=W\subset V$ then we have, since $\langle\_,\_ \rangle$ is non degenerate, for all $0 \neq z \in Z$ a $w \in W=Z$ such that $\langle z , w \rangle \neq 0$ in particular (to give a very concrete example) you could pick $w=z$ and then we already know that $$\langle z, w\rangle = \langle z, z\rangle = 0 \iff z=0$$

Also, be aware that only the concrete counterexample with $z=w$ needs an inner product, for the first one it suffices to have bilinear form $\langle \_ ,\_ \rangle$ inducing a non degenerate bilinearform on $Z=W$.

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