Let S be the collection of vectors $\begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \\ z \end{pmatrix}$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ such that $|x-y|=|y-z|$. Either prove that S forms a subspace of $\mathbb{R}^3$ or give a counterexample to show that it does not.
(from Poole, Linear Algebra - A Modern Introduction 2nd ed., exercise 3.5.8)
I'm working on this book by myself, so if you can just give me a hint to show me the right direction, that would be great. I have been trying to solve this by going through the three requirements of a subspace.
- The zero vector is in S.
- If u and v are in S, then u + v is in S.
- If u is in S and c is a scalar, then cu is in S.
It's easy to see the first one holds. For the third one I noticed that by adding c as multiplier on both sides of $|x-y|=|y-z|$ and fiddling a bit it becomes $|$c$u_x$-c$u_y|$ = $|$c$u_y$-c$u_z|$, which is the form I need to show it is closed under scalar multiplication.
But how to show the second one I have no idea. Stuff I tried tended to split into multiple cases because absolute values are taken of the left and right sides, it didn't feel like the right direction. Is there something really easy I'm missing here?
I also tried imagining what the subspace would look like, but it's too difficult to visualize.