Monday, 18 May 2015

abstract algebra - Do extension fields always belong to a bigger field?



Let F be a field, E1 and E2 are two distinct extension fields of F. Is it the case that we can always somehow find a field G that contains both E1 and E2? In other words, could extensions of fields have different 'direction's such that they are incompatible?




Edit: I began to think about this problem while reading a proof. F is a field. a and b are algebraic over F. p(x) and q(x) are two polynomials in F[x] of minimum degree that respectively make a and b a zero. The proof claims that there is an extension K of F such that all distinct zeros of p(x) and q(x) lie in K. For a single polynomial, I know this kind of field exists because of the existence of splitting field, why it is true for two polynomials?


Answer



Consider field extensions E1/F and E2/F. Then the tensor product
A=E1FE2 is a commutative ring, not necessarily a field though.
Non-trivial commutative rings have maximal ideals, by a Zorn's lemma argument.
Let I be a maximal ideal of A. Then K=A/I is a field. The map x¯x1A/I is a ring homomorphism E1K. As E1
is a field, this is an injective homomorphism, so we can think of E1
being "contained" in K. Likewise E2 is "contained" in K.




Beware though, the ideal I may not be unique.


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