An interesting thing happens when one begins with the axioms of a field, but does not require the associative and commutative properties. The resulting nonassociative division ring is referred to as a ``semifield" in this paper. Semifields have intimate ties to finite projective planes. In short, a finite projective plane with certain restrictions gives rise to a semifield, and, in turn, a finite semifield can be used via a coordinate construction, to build a special finite projective plane. It is also shown that two finite semifields provide a coordinate system for isomorphic projective planes if and only if the semifields are isotopic, where isotopy is a relationship similar to but weaker than isomorphism.
Before we prove those results, we explore the nature of isotopy to get a little better feel for the concept. For example, we look at isotopy for associative algebras. We will also examine a particular family of semifields and gather concrete information about solutions to linear equations and isomorphisms. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32937 |
| Date | 19 June 2000 |
| Creators | Landquist, Eric Jon |
| Contributors | Mathematics, Farkas, Daniel R., Brown, Ezra A., Green, Edward L. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | sfield.pdf |
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