Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / ii / Paper 1 / 29J / c / Solution

Because every column of $X$ has sample mean zero, every column $u_i$ of $U=XV$ also has sample mean zero. The spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices givesHence for $i\ne j$ the sample covariance is $n^{-1}{u}_i^T{u}_j=0$, while the sample variance of $u_i$ isThus the $u_i$ are pairwise uncorrelated sample principal components, ordered by decreasing sample variance.