A fundamental concept in mathematics. Let
be
m-component vectors. These vectors are linearly independent if for some scalars α
1, α
2,…, α
n,
implies
Otherwise the vectors are said to be
linearly dependent, i.e. at least one of the vectors can be written as a linear combination of the others. The importance of a linearly independent set of vectors is that, providing there are enough of them, any arbitrary vector can be represented uniquely in terms of them.
A similar concept applies to functions f1(x), f2(x),…, fn(x) defined on an interval [a,b], which are linearly independent if for some scalars α1, α2,…, αn, the condition,
implies