Beck's coloring of a commutative ring (Q1324193)

Not only are rings and algebras associated with graphs, but so are graphs associated with rings and algebras. In this case the recipe applies to commutative rings with identity \(R\), where distinct elements \(x\) and \(y\) of \(R\) are adjacent iff \(xy=0\). The chromatic number \(\chi(R)\) is the chromatic number of this graph associated with the ring \(R\). The clique number \(\text{cl}(R)\) is the clique number of the associated graph and Beck, the originator of this recipe, conjectured that \(\chi(R)= \text{cl}(R)\) (chromatic ring) and he showed that the class of chromatic rings is large. The authors of this paper extend Beck's original results by constructing a finite local ring \(R\) with \(\text{cl}(R)= 5<\chi(R)= 6\) and by enlarging the class of rings known to be chormatic via an extended study of a class of rings designated as colorings. Finally, they catalogue all finite rings \(R\) with \(\chi(R)= 4\). Although quite interesting results are obtained it is not completely clear that there are no other definitions of adjacency which are equally natural. Thus, one may consider the condition \(xy= 0\) as one of the form \(p(x,y)=0\), where \(p(x,y)\) is a fixed polynomial of some sort and obtain a larger framework into which these results might be embedded to the advantage of algebra and graph theory.