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Section Characteristic of a ring

In this section we define the characteristic of a ring that contains a subfield.

Definition 14.

Let \(f\colon\mathbb{Z}\to R\) be a unique ring homomorphism. The kernel of \(f\) is generated by the unique positive integer \(n\text{,}\) \(\ker f=(n)\text{.}\) The integer \(n\) is called the characteristic of \(R\text{.}\)

Checkpoint 15.

Find the characteristic of the following fields.
\begin{equation*} \Q,\R,\C,\F_p,\F_p(t),\Q(t) \end{equation*}

Checkpoint 16.

Find the characteristic of the following rings.
\begin{equation*} \R[x]/(x^2+1),\quad\Q[x]/(x^3-2),\quad\F_3[x]/(x^2+1) \end{equation*}