Find an orthogonal basis for V

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Let V be the three dimensional subspace of $$R^{4}$$ defined by the equation $$x_{1} − 2x_{2} + 3x_{3} − 4x_{4} = 0.$$ Find an orthonormal basis for V .

I know that I should use Gram-Schmidt but I am unsure of how to apply it. I saw the examples and other problems dealing with multiple basis here but it did not make sense to me.

Please explain it to me in detail so that I can understand.

So I found a basis to be $$u_{1}=(\frac{2}{\sqrt{5}},\frac{1}{\sqrt{5}},0,0)\\ u_{2}=(0,0,0,0)\\u_3=(\frac{4}{5\sqrt{\frac{41}{25}}},0,0,\frac{1}{\sqrt\frac{41}{25}})$$

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As a first step find a "simple" basis that is

  • $v_1=\left(2,1,0,0\right)$
  • $v_2=\left(0,0,4,3\right)$
  • $v_3=\left(4,0,0,1\right)$

and, we are lucky, $v_1$ and $v_2$ are othogonal, then we need to orthogonalize $v_3$ with respect to $v_1$ and $v_2$ and finally normalize the three orthogonal vectors.

Refer also to the related


Notably we can find the orthogonal component of $v_3$ by

$$w_3=v_3-\frac{v_1^Tw_3}{v_1^Tv_1}v_1-\frac{v_2^Tw_3}{v_2^Tv_2}v_2$$

and then normalize by

$$u_1=\frac{v_1}{\sqrt{v_1^Tv_1}}\quad u_2=\frac{v_2}{\sqrt{v_2^Tv_2}}\quad u_3=\frac{w_3}{\sqrt{w_3^Tw_3}}$$