A^TA is invertible whenever A has independent columns, proven via a null-space trick, and orthonormal columns give the ideal case A^TA = I.
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Independent columns make invertible
Reproduce the proof: start from , left-multiply by , rewrite as , deduce , and finish with column independence.
Orthonormal vectors
Define orthonormal as mutually perpendicular unit vectors, split the term into its two halves, and record the standard basis and the pair , as examples.
The simplification
State what orthonormal columns give for , reduce the projection matrix to , and note that no inverse is computed in that case.