Iain T. Adamson - Böcker

Field Theory is a fascinating branch of algebra, with many interesting applications, and its central result, the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory, is by any standards one of the really important theorems of mathematics. This book brings the reader from the basic definitions to important results and applications, and introduces him to the spirit and some of the techniques of abstract algebra. It is addressed to undergraduates in pure mathematics and presupposes only a little knowledge of elementary group theory. Chapter I develops the elementary properties of rings and fields including the notions of characteristic, prime fields and various types of homomorphisms. In Chapter II extension fields and various ways of classifying them are studies. Chapter III gives an exposition of the Galois Theory, following Artin's approach, and Chapter IV provides a wide variety of applications of the preceding theory. For the second edition Dr Adamson has improved the exposition in places, made corrections and updated the references.

This book has been called a Workbook to make it clear from the start that it is not a conventional textbook. Conventional textbooks proceed by giving in each section or chapter first the definitions of the terms to be used, the concepts they are to work with, then some theorems involving these terms (complete with proofs) and finally some examples and exercises to test the readers' understanding of the definitions and the theorems. Readers of this book will indeed find all the conventional constituents--definitions, theorems, proofs, examples and exercises­ but not in the conventional arrangement. In the first part of the book will be found a quick review of the basic definitions of general topology interspersed with a large num­ ber of exercises, some of which are also described as theorems. (The use of the word Theorem is not intended as an indication of difficulty but of importance and usefulness. ) The exercises are deliberately not "graded"-after all the problems we meet in mathematical "real life" do not come in order of difficulty; some of them are very simple illustrative examples; others are in the nature of tutorial problems for a conven­ tional course, while others are quite difficult results. No solutions of the exercises, no proofs of the theorems are included in the first part of the book-this is a Workbook and readers are invited to try their hand at solving the problems and proving the theorems for themselves.