Basis

🅟 May 05, 2026

  🅤 Jun 20, 2026

Definition 1.

Let $V$ be a vector space. $B \subseteq V$ is a basis of $V$ if $B$ spans $V$ and is linearly independent.

The length of a basis is its cardinality.


The following three statements are equivalent to $\AC$:

Proposition 1. Basis Extension.

Let $V$ be a vector space. For any linearly independent subset $S \subseteq V$, there is a basis $B\supseteq S$.

Proposition 2. Basis Selection.

Let $V$ be a vector space. For any spanning subset $S \subseteq V$, there is a basis $B \subseteq S$.

Proposition 3. Existence of Basis.

Every vector space has a basis.


Proposition 4. Steinitz Exchange Lemma.

Let $V$ be a vector space. If $A \subseteq V$ is linearly independent and $B \subseteq V$ spans $V$, then there is a set $T \subseteq A$ with $\lvert T \rvert = \lvert B \rvert - \lvert A \rvert$ such that $A \sqcup T$ spans $V$.

Proposition 5.

All bases of a vector space have the same length.