[Math] Proving that two systems of linear equations are equivalent if they have the same solutions

linear algebrasystems of equations

I've just begun to work learn Linear Algebra on my own through Hoffman and Kunze's book and the first problem set already has a question that I can't solve:

Prove that if two homogeneous systems of linear equations in two unknowns have the same solutions, then they are equivalent.

I can't seem to figure out how to prove this without resorting to case work where you account for the cases where one of the coefficients are zero and when both are.

Is there an elegant way to prove in general that when two systems of linear equations have the same solutions, they are equivalent? The converse is obvious enough though.

Definition of equivalence from the text :

Let us say that two systems of linear equations are equivalent if each equation in each system is a linear combination of the equations
in the other system.

Best Answer

We have to prove the following: Given any solution set $L\subset{\mathbb R}^2$ then any two homogeneous systems $$\Sigma: \qquad a_i x+ b_i y=0 \qquad (1\leq i\leq n)$$ having the solution set $L$ can be transformed into each other by means of row operations.

The solution set $L$ can be one of the following:

(i) $\ \{0\}$,

(ii) a one-dimensional subspace $<r>$ with $r=(p,q)\ne 0$,

(iii) all of ${\mathbb R}^2$.

Ad (i): If $0$ is the only solution of $\Sigma$ then not all row vectors $c_i=(a_i,b_i)$ can be multiples of one and the same vector $c\ne0$. So there are two equations $a_1 x+b_1 y=0$, $a_2 x+ b_2 y=0$ in $\Sigma$ with linearly independent row vectors $(a_i, b_i)$, and by means of row operations one can transform these into $\Sigma_0: \ x=0, y=0$. Further row operations will remove all remaining equations from $\Sigma$. We conclude that in this case all systems $\Sigma$ are equivalent to $\Sigma_0$.

Ad (ii): The System $\Sigma$ has to contain at least one equation with $c_i=(a_i,b_i)\ne 0$. We claim that all equations with $c_i\ne 0$ are individually equivalent to $\Sigma_1: \ q x -p y=0$. So in this case any given $\Sigma$ is equivalent to $\Sigma_1$. To prove the claim we may assume $a_i\ne 0$. Now $r\in L$ implies $a_i p+ b_i q=0$, and as $r\ne 0$ we must have $q\ne 0$. This implies $b_i=-a_i p/q$, so multiplying the equation $a_i x+ b_i y=0$ by $q/a_i$ gives $\Sigma_1$.

Ad (iii): This case is trivial. All rows of $\Sigma$ are $0$.

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