Reduction of order takes one solution to a differential equation and produces another solution with this property.
Two solutions to homogeneous second order linear differential equations with this property have zeroes that alternate according to the Sturm separation theorem. Sets of the edges of a graph possess an analogous property to this one if they make up a forest; that generalization of this property is called a matroid. Reduction of order takes one solution to a differential equation and produces another solution with this property. The (*) columns of a matrix have this property if the matrix has a nonzero determinant. A set with this property that spans a vector space is said to be a basis for that space. For 10 points, name this property possessed by a family of vectors if no vector can be written as a linear combination of the others.
Two solutions to homogeneous second order linear differential equations with this property have zeroes that alternate according to the Sturm separation theorem.
linear {independence} [accept word forms]