In the theory of vector spaces, a set of vectors is said to be linearly dependent if there is a nontrivial linear combination of the vectors that equals the zero vector. If no such linear combination exists, then the vectors are said to be linearly independent. These concepts are central to the definition of dimension.A vector space can be of finite dimension or infinite dimension depending on the maximum number of linearly independent vectors. The definition of linear dependence and the ability to determine whether a subset of vectors in a vector space is linearly dependent are central to determining the dimension of a vector space.