The corollary below is from Hoffman and Kunze's book, Linear Algebra.
Corollary. If $W$ is a $k$-dimensional subspace of an $n$-dimensional vector space $V$, then $W$ is the intersection of
$(n-k)$ hyperspaces in $V$.
In the proof, they find $n-k$ linear functionals $f_{i}$ such that $W=\cap_{i=1}^{n-k}\ker (f_{i})$.
I want to know if the following is true: For all proper subspace $W$ of a infinite-dimensional vector space $V$ there are a set of linear functionals $\{f_{i}|i\in I\}$, where $I$ is a set of index such that $W=\cap_{i\in I}\ker (f_{i})$.
Thanks for your kindly help.
Best Answer
Let $(w_i)_{i\in I}$ be a Hamel basis of $W$. Extended this basis to a basis of $V$, let us call it $(w_i)_{i\in I}\cup (v_j)_{j\in J}$. Now for each $j\in J$ defined $f_j(v_j)=1$ and zero elsewhere. It follows that $W=\bigcap_{j\in J} ker(f_j)$.
If you are interested in normed vector space then $W$ need to be a closed subspace and you can mimic the proof using Hahn-Banach.