For the field in relations, see field (relation).

A field is a set paired with two operations on the set, which are designated as addition and multiplication . As a group can be conceptualized as an ordered pair of a set and an operation, , a field can be conceptualized as an ordered triple .

A set with addition and multiplication, , is a field if and only if it satisfies the following properties:

1. Commutativity of both addition and multiplication — For all , and
2. Associativity of both addition and multiplication — For all , and
3. Additive IdentityThere exists a "zero" element, , called an additive identity, such that for all
4. Additive Inverses — For each , there exists a , called an additive inverse of , such that
5. Multiplicative Identity — There exists a "one" element, , different from 0, called a multiplicative identity, such that for all
6. Multiplicative Inverses — For each , except for 0, there exists a , called a multiplicative inverse of , such that
7. Distributive property — For all ,
8. Closure of addition and multiplication — For all , and

Alternatively, a field can be defined as a commutative ring with unity (has a multiplicative identity) and multiplicative inverses.

We will often abbreviate the multiplication of two elements, , by juxtaposition of the elements, . Also, when combining multiplication and addition in an expression, multiplication takes precedence over addition unless the addition is enclosed in parenthesis. That is, .

We can also denote and as additive and multiplicative inverses of any . Furthermore, we can define two more operations, called subtraction and division by , and provided that , .

## Important Results

Because a field is also a ring with unity, these properties are inherited:

• is an abelian groups
• , for all
• , for all
• , for all
• , for all
• Multiplication distributes over subtraction.

• is also an abelian group, where is the set of nonzero elements of
• Any field contains a subfield that is field-isomorphic to or for some prime .

## Optional Properties

A field is:

• A subfield of a field if (see subset), where addition and multiplication on is a domain restriction on the addition and multiplication on . More commonly, we say that is an extension field of , and in fact, is also a vector space over
• An ordered field if there exists a total order on such that for all , if , then , (translation invariance), and if and , then

## Related

Elements of a field are the quantities over the vectorspaces are constructed and there are also called the scalars.

In the same branch functions , where is a field are called scalar fields.