Isomorphism theorems Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-13
The isomorphism theorems relate homomorphisms, their kernels and images, and quotient constructions in algebra. For groups, the first isomorphism theorem identifies a homomorphism's image with the quotient group by its group kernel. Analogous statements include the first isomorphism theorem for rings and the First isomorphism theorem for vector spaces: identifying precisely the inputs with the same output preserves the remaining algebraic structure.
The annihilator of a vector subspace is
Choose a basis of and extend it to a basis of . In the dual basis, precisely span . Therefore
The canonical restriction linear transformation
has kernel of a linear map . It is surjective: extend any linear functional on by assigning arbitrary values, for instance zero, to the additional basis vectors. The First isomorphism theorem for vector spaces gives the explicit linear isomorphism
It is natural because the displayed map itself makes no basis choice; a basis was used only to prove surjectivity. In particular, is canonically a quotient vector space of , rather than canonically a subspace of .
The rank-nullity theorem says that for a linear map with finite-dimensional domain,
The direct sum consists of pairs with componentwise vector-space operations. The canonical inclusions are
For subspaces , define
This is surjective, and
The First isomorphism theorem for vector spaces therefore gives