 Solution

Retain the first $r$ terms in the singular value decomposition:The Eckart-Young-Mirsky theorem says that this truncated singular value decomposition is a best low-rank approximation in the spectral norm. The remaining singular values of the difference are ${\sigma }_{r+1},\dots ,{\sigma }_n$, together with zeros, soFor $r\ge 1$ the displayed matrix has matrix rank exactly $r$, since every retained singular value is positive. For $r=0$, the only matrix of matrix rank zero is the zero matrix, and the same formula gives error ${\sigma }_1$.