Comments on 296 Homework 6 Problem 4

Course Assistant: Ruthi Hortsch

March 20, 2011

Here are some comments and partial solutions for Homework 6 Problem 4. Please review this carefully
as not only are finite fields important in many areas of mathematics, but these methods/ideas show up
later. In particular, the idea of considering equivalence classes as elements of a set shows up literally
everywhere in math (as quotient spaces/groups/rings/etc). So in particular, make sure you know how to
check whether something “well-defined”. Some of this is more formal and with more details than necessary,
but I wanted to make sure you understand the thinking.
(1), (2), (3) What does “well-defined” mean? For example, how do I show that

A : Zn × Zn → Zn
a × b 7→ a + b

is well-defined?1
Comment: Recall that a = {a + kn | k ∈ Z},2 i.e. elements of Zn are subsets of Z. I could just as
easily write a0 , where a0 ∈ Z such that a0 ∈ a, and then a = a0 (here a and a0 are called representatives
of a). Since there is nothing canonical about these choices and the definition of A depends on them, the
definition of A could be ambiguous, i.e. different choices of representatives of a and b could give different
images. So what needs to be checked is that if I choose different representatives, I will get the same image
(i.e. that this really is a function!).
A correct solution: Let a0 ∈ a and b0 ∈ b be choices of representatives. That is, a − a0 = k1 n and
b−b0 = k2 n for some k1 , k2 ∈ Z. Then I want to make sure that A(a×b) = A(a0 ×b0 ), that is a + b = a0 + b0 .
This happens if n divides (a + b) − (a0 + b0 ). Well

(a + b) − (a0 + b0 ) = a − a0 + b − b0
= k1 n + k2 n
= (k1 + k2 )n

which implies that a + b = a0 + b0 . We write a + b for A(a × b).

The situation for multiplication is almost exactly the same, only you need to consider a0 b0 − ab instead.
Checking the associative, commutative and distributive properties does not require anything particularly
difficult, but the idea is to simply reduce it to the properties in Z, for example:

a+b=a+b
=b+a
= b + a.
1
This notation means A is a map from Zn × Zn to Zn that takes the element a × b ∈ Zn × Zn (also written (a, b)) to the
element a + b ∈ Zn , that is A(a × b) = a + b.
2
It is not correct to say a = a + kn for some k ∈ Z

1
 (4) A solution: We will prove the contrapositive: Suppose that n = n1 n2 . Then n1 n2 = 0 in Zn .
Suppose n1 has an inverse m. Then n2 = m n1 n2 = m0 = m0 = 0. So by definition, this means that
n2 = kn for some k ∈ Z. But then n = n1 n2 = n1 kn, which implies that n1 k = 1, so since both n1 , k ∈ Z,
this means n1 = ±1. This shows that if every element of Zn has an inverse, then n is prime.
Note on rings (not required material): If R is a ring,3 the set of elements with multiplicative
inverses in R are called units. This uses that the units of Z are precisely ±1. It also uses the fact that if
a 6= 0 and ab = ac in Z, then b = c (I’m going to call this property ♣). Some rings have elements such
that ab = 0 but a, b are both nonzero. An element a such that there exists such a b is called a zero divisor.
A ring with no zero divisors is called a division ring and has property ♣ (why?). This solution shows that
if n is not prime, then Zn has zero divisors. Another example of a ring with zero divisors is Mn×n (k), the
matrix ring over a field k. Can you find zero divisors of Mn×n (k)? (Note that while Mn×n is a ring, it is
not a commutative ring since multiplication is not commutative.)
(5) Suppose p is prime. Suppose that m ∈ Zp such that m 6= 0. That means that p 6 |m. Since the only
positive divisors of p are 1 and p, this means that gcd(m, p) = 1. On a previous homework, you proved
that this means that there are a, b ∈ Z such that am + bp = 1. So, if we take am = am = 1 − bp = 1. So
m is the multiplicative inverse of a.
(6) There a few steps that need to be checked in this proof and I leave as an exercise to you.
Let F be a field with p elements. Since it is a field there are elements 0F and 1F ∈ F which act as
additive and multiplicative identities. For k > 0, let kF denote the sum of 1F with itself k times (that is
nF = 1F + · · · + 1F ). Define a map:
| {z }
k

φ : Zp → F
k̄ 7→ kF

where if k < 0, we can use the division algorithm to chose a nonnegative representative (i.e. there are
q, r ∈ Z such that 0 ≤ r < p and k = qp + r, then define φ(k) = rF ). We need to check that this is
well-defined. If k = k 0 in Zp (k > k 0 ≥ 0), then there is an m ∈ Z such that k − k 0 = mp and m ≥ 0. So
φ(k) − φ(k 0 ) = kF − kF0 = 1F + · · · + 1F − 1F + · · · + 1F = 1F + · · · + 1F = 1F + · · · + 1F = (mp)F . So to
| {z } | {z } | {z } | {z }
k k0 k−k0 mp
show that φ is well-defined, it suffices to show that in F any multiple of p is zero.
Let f be the characteristic of F . Note it can’t be 0 since F is finite. Then consider the elements
{0F , 1F , . . . , (f − 1)F }. This is a field isomorphic to Zf (you should check this!). Since this is a field and
F is a field containing it, F is a vector space over Zf . So we can fix a basis {x1 , . . . , xd }, where d is the
dimension of F as a vector space over f , and note that this implies that p = |F | = f d . But the only
positive integers dividing p are 1 and p. Since 0 6= 1 in any field, the characteristic of a field is never 1, so
this means that f = p. As a result of this, φ is well-defined.4
You should check that φ is a field morphism (i.e. preserved multiplication and addition) but this is not
difficult. Additionally, note that this implies that φ is injective, since if φ(k) = φ(k 0 ), so kF = kF0 . Since
the characteristic of F is p, this implies that p divides k − k 0 , and so k = k 0 . Since we have an injective
field morphism between two finite fields of the same cardinality, this implies that φ is a field isomorphism.

3
If you don’t know what a ring is, you can find a definition on wikipedia under “Ring (mathematics)”.
4
This proof in fact shows that any finite field is of the form pd where p is the characteristic of the field. It can be shown
that for every prime p and d > 0, there is a unique field of characteristic p and size pd , which completely classifies all finite
fields. The proof above shows that this is exhaustive and uniqueness of addition, but showing existence and uniqueness of
multiplication uses some algebra that is a little more advanced.