Linear independence without choice Original Research Article

The notions of linear and metric independence are investigated in relation to the property: if U is a set of n+1 independent vectors, and X is a set of n independent vectors, then adjoining some vector in U to X results in a set of n+1 independent vectors. It is shown that this property holds in any normed linear space. A related property – that finite-dimensional subspaces are proximinal – is established for strictly convex normed spaces over the real or complex numbers. It follows that metric independence and linear independence are equivalent in such spaces. Proofs are carried out in the context of intuitionistic logic without the axiom of countable choice.