A formula for angles between subspaces of inner product spaces (Q2568850)

An explicit formula for the angle between a \(p\)-dimensional subspace \(U=\text{ span}\{u_1, \dots, u_p \}\) and a \(q\)-dimensional subspace \(V=\text{ span}\{v_1, \dots, v_q \}\) of a real inner product space \(X\) is presented. This formula also serves to a generalization of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. It is shown that the definition of angles between two subspaces of the Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^d\) of \textit{I. B. Risteski} and \textit{K. G. Trencevski} [Beitr. Algebra Geom. 42, 289-300 (2001; Zbl 0971.15001)] is based on the inequality which is correct only in the case when \(p=q\) or when \(\{v_1, \dots, v_q \}\) is orthonormal. Finally, the definition of the angle between a finite \(p\)-dimensional subspace \(U\) and an infinite dimensional subspace \(V\) of \(X\), assuming that the ambient space \(X\) is infinite dimensional and complete, is discussed.