Second Linearization of Galois Theory (Q6901027)

The aim of this interesting article is presenting an approach to the classical theorem of Ruffini and Abel on the insolvability of the quintic, where arguments from group theory are replaced by some linear algebra wherever this is possible. Clearly, for a finite extension \(E/F\) of fields, \(E\) can be viewed as a vector space over \(F\). For an arbitrary finite-dimensional \(F\)-vector space \(V\), extension of scalars produces the vector space \(V|_F^E = \mathrm{Lin}_F(E,V)\) of linear maps from \(E\) to \(V\). For \(\alpha \in E\), let \(M_\alpha\) denote the linear map defined by multiplication by \(\alpha\). Then \(E/F\) is called a Galois extension if for all \(\alpha \in E\), the \(E\)-linear endomorphisms \(M_\alpha|_F^E \in\mathrm{Lin}_E(E|_F^E, E|_F^E)\) are diagonizable over \(E\). The author shows that this coincides with the usual definition, and then develops the Galois theory needed for proving the Abel-Ruffini theorem.