Field theory (mathematics)

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Field theory is a branch of mathematics that studies the properties of fields. A field is a
mathematical entity for which addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are well-defined.
Please refer to Glossary of field theory for some basic definitions in field theory.
Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 Introduction
3 Extensions of a field
4 Closures of a field
5 Applications of field theory
6 Some useful theorems
7 See also
8 References
History[edit]
The concept of field was used implicitly by Niels Henrik Abel and variste Galois in their work on the
solvability of equations.
In 1871, Richard Dedekind, called a set of real or complex numbers which is closed under the four
arithmetic operations a "field".
In 1881, Leopold Kronecker defined what he called a "domain of rationality", which is a field
extension of the field of rational numbers in modern terms.
[1]

In 1893, Heinrich M. Weber gave the first clear definition of an abstract field.
In 1910 Ernst Steinitz published the influential paper Algebraische Theorie der Krper (German:
Algebraic Theory of Fields). In this paper he axiomatically studied the properties of fields and defined
many important field theoretic concepts like prime field, perfect field and the transcendence
degree of a field extension.
Galois, who did not have the term "field" in mind, is honored to be the first mathematician
linking group theory and field theory. Galois theory is named after him. However it wasEmil Artin who
first developed the relationship between groups and fields in great detail during 1928-1942.
Introduction[edit]
Fields are important objects of study in algebra since they provide a useful generalization of many
number systems, such as the rational numbers, real numbers, and complex numbers. In particular,
the usual rules of associativity, commutativity and distributivity hold. Fields also appear in many
other areas of mathematics; see the examples below.
When abstract algebra was first being developed, the definition of a field usually did not include
commutativity of multiplication, and what we today call a field would have been called either
a commutative field or a rational domain. In contemporary usage, a field is always commutative. A
structure which satisfies all the properties of a field except possibly for commutativity, is today called
a division ring or division algebra or sometimes a skew field. Also non-commutative field is still
widely used. In French, fields are called corps(literally, body), generally regardless of their
commutativity. When necessary, a (commutative) field is called corps commutatif and a skew
field corps gauche. The German word forbody is Krper and this word is used to denote fields;
hence the use of the blackboard bold to denote a field.
The concept of fields was first (implicitly) used to prove that there is no general formula expressing in
terms of radicals the roots of a polynomial with rational coefficients of degree 5 or higher.
Extensions of a field[edit]
An extension of a field k is just a field K containing k as a subfield. One distinguishes between
extensions having various qualities. For example, an extension K of a field k is calledalgebraic, if
every element of K is a root of some polynomial with coefficients in k. Otherwise, the extension is
called transcendental.
The aim of Galois theory is the study of algebraic extensions of a field.
Closures of a field[edit]
Given a field k, various kinds of closures of k may be introduced. For example, the algebraic closure,
the separable closure, the cyclic closure et cetera. The idea is always the same: If P is a property of
fields, then a P-closure of k is a field K containing k, having property P, and which is minimal in the
sense that no proper subfield of K that contains khas property P. For example if we take P(K) to be
the property "every nonconstant polynomial f in K[t] has a root in K", then a P-closure of k is just
an algebraic closure of k. In general, if P-closures exist for some property P and field k, they are all
isomorphic. However, there is in general no preferable isomorphism between two closures.
Applications of field theory[edit]
The concept of a field is of use, for example, in defining vectors and matrices, two structures in linear
algebra whose components can be elements of an arbitrary field.
Finite fields are used in number theory, Galois theory and coding theory, and again algebraic
extension is an important tool.
Binary fields, fields of characteristic 2, are useful in computer science.
Some useful theorems[edit]
Isomorphism extension theorem
Lroth's theorem
Primitive element theorem
Wedderburn's little theorem
See also[edit]
Ring
Vector space
Category of fields
References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Cox, David A. (2012). Galois Theory. Pure and Applied
Mathematics 106 (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
p. 348. ISBN 1118218426.
Allenby, R.B.J.T. (1991). Rings, Fields and Groups. Butterworth-
Heinemann. ISBN 0-340-54440-6.
Blyth, T.S.; Robertson, E.F. (1985). Groups, rings and fields:
Algebra through practice, Book 3. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-27288-2.
Blyth, T.S.; Robertson, E.F. (1985). Rings, fields and modules:
Algebra through practice, Book 6. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-27291-2.
Categories:
Field theory
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