Kunze Linear Algebra · Problem 16

Linear Transformations

Mathematics — Methods · trace-functional-uniqueness

Problem

Show that the trace functional on n×nn \times n matrices is unique in the following sense. If WW is the space of n×nn \times n matrices over the field FF and if ff is a linear functional on WW such that f(AB)=f(BA)f(AB) = f(BA) for each AA and BB in WW, then ff is a scalar multiple of the trace function. If, in addition, f(I)=nf(I) = n, then ff is the trace function.

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