Rings, groups, and fields all feel similar. What are the differences between them, both in definition and in how they are used?
What are the differences between rings, groups, and fields?
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3Is there a diagram somewhere that depicts the relationships pictorially? – 2014-08-29
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6Ah, this page contains some useful diagrams concerning group etc. relationships: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_(algebra) – 2014-08-29
6 Answers
They should feel similar! In fact, every ring is a group, and every field is a ring. A ring is a group with an additional operation, where the second operation is associative and the distributive properties make the two operations "compatible".
A field is a ring such that the second operation also satisfies all the group properties (after throwing out the additive identity); i.e. it has multiplicative inverses, multiplicative identity, and is commutative.
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12Please note that the multiplicative group of a field (obviously) does not contain the zero from the field in question as there is no inverse. – 2010-07-20
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1Yes, this is a point that must be made! – 2010-07-20
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2The phrase "i.e.,... is commutative" is somewhat confusing, as it suggests that being commutative is a group property. Commutativity is actually an additional property to the one requiring nonzero elements to form a multiplicative group; without it one has a division ring. – 2013-02-10
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0It should be specified that addition in a ring is commutative. – 2013-02-10
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2This is the clearest basic definition of the differences I've ever seen. Thank you! – 2015-03-23
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1Should the answer be modified/added to, s.t. "all the group properties" becomes "all the properties of an *Abelian* group" ? – 2016-03-23
You're right to think that the definitions are very similar. The main difference between groups and rings is that rings have two binary operations (usually called addition and multiplication) instead of just one binary operation.
If you forget about multiplication, then a ring becomes a group with respect to addition (the identity is 0 and inverses are negatives). This group is always commutative!
If you forget about addition, then a ring does not become a group with respect to multiplication. The binary operation of multiplication is associative and it does have an identity 1, but some elements like 0 do not have inverses. (This structure is called a monoid.)
A commutative ring is a field when all nonzero elements have multiplicative inverses. In this case, if you forget about addition and remove 0, the remaining elements do form a group under multiplication. This group is again commutative.
A division ring is a (not necessarily commutative) ring in which all nonzero elements have multiplicative inverses. Again, if you forget about addition and remove 0, the remaining elements do form a group under multiplication. This group is not necessarily commutative. An example of a division ring which is not a field are the quaternions.
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3A ring does not necessarily have a multiplicative identity. – 2013-01-07
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7That used to be the case but most authors today define a ring to have $1$. The unusual looking term *rng* is sometimes used for the concept without $1$. – 2013-01-07
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0"if you forgot about addition, then the ring does not become a group" ... and since it is no longer a ring (having only one operation), it becomes a "Magma"? – 2018-08-04
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0@Les It is a magma since it has one binary operation, but moreover it is a monoid since it is associative and 1 acts as an identity element. In the case of a field, it's actually one shy of a group in the sense that 0 is the only element without an inverse. – 2018-08-06
I won't explain what a ring or a group is, because that's already been done, but I'll add something else. One reason groups and rings feel similar is that they are both "algebraic structures" in the sense of universal algebra. So for instance, the operation of quotienting via a normal subgroup (for a group) and a two-sided ideal (for a ring) are basically instances of quotienting via an invariant equivalence relation in universal algebra. A field, by contrast, is not really a construction of universal algebra (because the operation $x \to x^{-1}$ is not everywhere defined) -- which is why free fields don't exist, for instance -- though they are a special case of rings.
A group is an abstraction of addition and subtraction—except that the group operation might not be commutative. But the important part is that there is an operation, which is something like addition, and the operation can be reversed, so there is also something like subtraction.
To this, a ring adds multiplication, but not necessarily division.
To this, a field adds division.
(Going the other way from a group, we have the monoid, which has addition, but not subtraction.)
Any group $G$ is isomorphic to its opposite group $G^{\text{op}}$ via the map $g \mapsto g^{-1}$, however there is no such natural map for rings and in general it is not true that a ring is isomorphic to its opposite ring.
Therefore, it is always possible to obtain a right action of a group $G$ if a left action is given whereas it may not be possible to equip a left $R$-module with a right $R$-module structure.
Every field is a ring, and every ring is a group. A group has one operation which satisfies closure, associative property, commutive property, identity, and inverse property. A ring satisfies all properties of a group; it also has a second operation which has closure, associative, and distributive property between these two operations. A field has two operations and both satisfy all group properties.