Weight polarization and divisibility (Q751625)

This paper develops the polarization of the weight function and presents a test for divisibility of a code that can be carried out on a given spanning set. The paper includes another proof of the theorem of \textit{J. Ax} [Am. J. Math. 86, 255--261 (1964; Zbl 0121.02003)] on divisors of weights of polynomial functions. The paper concludes with an application to Reed-Muller codes that leads to Ax's theorem.