scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1030796

Publication date 6 July 1997

algebraic number theory arithmetic elementary algebraic geometry factorial rings formal power series Hilbert's Nullstellensatz integral domains prime ideals rational functions resultants ring-theoretic topics in advanced algebra

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to number theory (11-01) Algebraic number theory: global fields (11Rxx) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to commutative algebra (13-01) Arithmetic rings and other special commutative rings (13Fxx) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to algebraic geometry (14-01)

Review text

The book under review is essentially a graduate text on the basic theory of commutative rings and fields, with a particular view toward the arithmetic and geometric aspects of the subject. In this regard, it rather represents an excellent new textbook on ring-theoretic topics in advanced algebra, algebraic number theory, and elementary algebraic geometry, which possibly differs from what the title ``Commutative Algebra might be suggesting at the first glance. For instance, there is no systematic treatment of multiplicative ideal theory, dimension theory, or homological methods for rings and modules, as it has become part of most recent, comprehensive textbooks on ``usual modern commutative algebra. Instead, the author aims at providing a profound, exacting, and methodically well-considered introduction to the subject of commutative algebra, thereby focussing on its historical roots from the theory of algebraic integers, field extensions, algebraic functions, and affine algebraic curves, and that by developing thoroughly the concepts and methods of modern algebra. The outcome is a masterly textbook of typically French elegance, systematic, rigor, and proper generality, which effectively guides the demanding reader into the beauty, depth, and power of algebra. The text consists of seven chapters, out of which the first four chapters are methodically centred around the basic strategy of how the arithmetic of the ring of integers can be generalized to other classes of rings. Chapter 1 explains the elementary arithmetic of the ring \(\mathbb{Z}\) of integers and its factor rings, ending up with the quadratic reciprocity law. Chapter 2 discusses general principal domains, the structure of modules over them, their divisibility theory, and the basics on quadratic algebraic integers, including the description of lattices in such rings. Chapter 3 provides the fundamental generalities on arbitrary commutative rings: prime ideals, localization, noetherian rings, artinian rings, modules of finite length, and the metric aspects of the ideal theory for algebras of continuous functions. Chapter 4 is devoted to the topic of divisibility in integral domains. This naturally encompasses an introduction to factorial rings (with an application to rings of complex-analytic functions of one variable), ring extensions, algebraic integers with respect to ring extensions, the integral closure of a noetherian domain, and fractional ideals. This is then concretely illustrated by a discussion of the arithmetic of rings of algebraic integers, thereby providing an introduction to the basics of algebraic number theory, as well as by an analysis of discrete valuation rings. The interesting example of rings of germs of complex-analytic functions is added in order to give an example of a non-discrete valuation ring. Chapter 5 deals with fields of rational functions of one variable, formal power series in one variable, topological aspects arising from valuation theory, and with some elementary properties of Dirichlet series. Polynomial rings over a field are the subject of study in chapter 6. After the classical results on roots, symmetric polynomials, Newton identities, discriminants and resultants, the author describes the geometric aspects of polynomial algebras, that is the fundamental concepts of affine algebraic geometry, including Zariski topology, Hilbert's ``Nullstellensatz, function fields of irreducible affine varieties, morphisms, plane algebraic curves, the theorem of Lüroth, and rational cubics in the projective plane. This chapter concludes with a little dimension theory of irreducible affine varieties via the transcendence degree of a field extension. The concluding chapter 7 is a little offside from the main subject of the text, i.e., from the theory of (particular) commutative rings. The topic treated here is field extensions, which is usually discussed in textbooks on advanced abstract algebra. However, many crucial results from the theory of field extensions are, of course, used in the foregoing chapters, and the author has circumspectly added this topic for the sake of completeness, perfectness, and self-containedness of the entire text. In detail, this part of the book provides a thorough background on general field extensions, including splitting fields, the algebraic closure of a field, (in-)separability, Galois theory, roots of unity and cyclotomic fields, field extensions of degree two and three, finite fields, and radical extensions. Each chapter comes with an ample set of additional examples, challenging exercises, and complete solutions of the latter. These solutions of the problems may serve for the self-control of the reader, but they also provide some additional learning material and results, according to the ambition of the reader. Also, the reader will find numerous delicate and enlightening remarks in the course of the text, which will help him to understand deeper the purely abstract parts of the whole algebraic framework, very much so with a view towards its relations to complex analysis and topology. Without any doubt, this is an extremely well-arranged and valuable introduction to the theory of commutative rings, and an excellent primer for further studies in advanced commutative algebra, algebraic number theory, and algebraic geometry.

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