Suppose UU is a subspace of VV with UVU \ne V. Suppose SL(U,W)S \in \mathcal L(U,W) and S0S \ne 0 (Which means that Su0Su \ne 0 for some uUu \in U). Define T:VWT : V \to W by

Tv={Svif vU0if vV and vUTv = \begin{cases} Sv &\text{if } v \in U \\ 0 &\text{if } v \in V \text{ and } v \notin U \end{cases}

Prove that TT is not a linear map on VV.


Let uUu \in U such that Su0Su \ne 0. Let vV,vUv \in V, v \notin U and consider how u+vUu+v \notin U because if it were in UU adding u-u would imply vUv \in U which it isn't. Since T(u+v)=0Tu+TvT(u + v) = 0 \ne Tu + Tv we conclude TT is not linear.


In essence this exercise was to show you can't naively extend a linear map on a subspace to the full space by setting it to zero on the full space.