Affine space
Affine span and bases

For any non-empty subset X of an affine space A, there is a smallest affine subspace that contains it, called the affine span of X. It is the intersection of all affine subspaces containing X, and its direction is the intersection of the directions of the affine subspaces that contain X.

The affine span of X is the set of all (finite) affine combinations of points of X, and its direction is the linear span of the x − y for x and y in X. If one chooses a particular point x, the direction of the affine span of X is also the linear span of the x – x for x in X.

One says also that the affine span of X is generated by X and that X is a generating set of its affine span.

A set X of points of an affine space is said to be affinely independent or, simply, independent, if the affine span of any strict subset of X is a strict subset of the affine span of X. An affine basis or barycentric frame (see § Barycentric coordinates, below) of an affine space is a generating set that is also independent (that is a minimal generating set).

Recall that the dimension of an affine space is the dimension of its associated vector space. The bases of an affine space of finite dimension n are the independent subsets of n + 1 elements, or, equivalently, the generating subsets of n + 1 elements. Equivalently, { x,..., x } is an affine basis of an affine space if and only if { x − x,..., x − x } is a linear basis of the associated vector space.
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