Lindsay N. Childs - Böcker

This book is an informal and readable introduction to higher algebra at the post-calculus level. The concepts of ring and field are introduced through study of the familiar examples of the integers and polynomials. Over 900 exercises are found throughout the book.

This book is written as an introduction to higher algebra for students with a background of a year of calculus. The first edition of this book emerged from a set of notes written in the 1970sfor a sophomore-junior level course at the University at Albany entitled "Classical Algebra." The objective of the course, and the book, is to give students enough experience in the algebraic theory of the integers and polynomials to appre­ ciate the basic concepts of abstract algebra. The main theoretical thread is to develop algebraic properties of the ring of integers: unique factorization into primes, congruences and congruence classes, Fermat's theorem, the Chinese remainder theorem; and then again for the ring of polynomials. Doing so leads to the study of simple field extensions, and, in particular, to an exposition of finite fields. Elementary properties of rings, fields, groups, and homomorphisms of these objects are introduced and used as needed in the development. Concurrently with the theoretical development, the book presents a broad variety of applications, to cryptography, error-correcting codes, Latin squares, tournaments, techniques of integration, and especially to elemen­ tary and computational number theory. A student who asks, "Why am I learning this?," willfind answers usually within a chapter or two. For a first course in algebra, the book offers a couple of advantages. • By building the algebra out of numbers and polynomials, the book takes maximal advantage of the student's prior experience in algebra and arithmetic. New concepts arise in a familiar context.

This book is an informal and readable introduction to higher algebra at the post-calculus level. The concepts of ring and field are introduced through study of the familiar examples of the integers and polynomials. The new examples and theory are built in a well-motivated fashion and made relevant by many applications - to cryptography, coding, integration, history of mathematics, and especially to elementary and computational number theory. The later chapters include expositions of Rabiin's probabilistic primality test, quadratic reciprocity, and the classification of finite fields. Over 900 exercises are found throughout the book.

Hopf algebras have been shown to play a natural role in studying questions of integral module structure in extensions of local or global fields. This book surveys the state of the art in Hopf-Galois theory and Hopf-Galois module theory and can be viewed as a sequel to the first author's book, Taming Wild Extensions: Hopf Algebras and Local Galois Module Theory, which was published in 2000.The book is divided into two parts. Part I is more algebraic and focuses on Hopf-Galois structures on Galois field extensions, as well as the connection between this topic and the theory of skew braces. Part II is more number theoretical and studies the application of Hopf algebras to questions of integral module structure in extensions of local or global fields.Graduate students and researchers with a general background in graduate-level algebra, algebraic number theory, and some familiarity with Hopf algebras will appreciate the overview of the current state of this exciting area and the suggestions for numerous avenues for further research and investigation.