We give here a simple illustration of computing the kernel of a matrix (see the section Basis below for methods better suited to more complex calculations.) We also touch on the row space and its relation to the kernel.
Consider the matrix
The kernel of this matrix consists of all vectors (x, y, z) ∈ R3 for which
which can be expressed as a homogeneous system of linear equations involving x, y, and z:
which can be written in matrix form as:
Gauss–Jordan elimination reduces this to:
Rewriting yields:
Now we can express an element of the kernel:
for c a scalar.
Since c is a free variable, this can be expressed equally well as,
The kernel of A is precisely the solution set to these equations (in this case, a line through the origin in R3); the vector (−1,−26,16)T constitutes a basis of the kernel of A. Thus, the nullity of A is 1.
Note also that the following dot products are zero:
which illustrates that vectors in the kernel of A are orthogonal to each of the row vectors of A.
These two (linearly independent) row vectors span the row space of A, a plane orthogonal to the vector (−1,−26,16)T.
With the rank of A 2, the nullity of A 1, and the dimension of A 3, we have an illustration of the rank-nullity theorem.