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I'm having great difficulty understanding this finite field topic.

The other day I had a little quiz about this topic, and one of the questions is

"Is $GF(3)$ a subspace of $GF(5)$ over $GF(3)?$" And the answer is it is not.

And my questions are:

  1. Why is $GF(3)$ not a subspace of $GF(5)$ over $GF(3)$?
  2. In general, when can we say that a finite field $GF(p)$ is a vector space over $GF(q)$? What are the requirements and why?
  3. And in general, when can we say that a finite field $GF(p)$ is a subspace of $GF(q)$ over $GF(r)$?

Thank you very much!

1 Answers1

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Those are too many questions for one post.

1- The field of $5$ elements can't be a vector space over the field of $3$ elements with its usual addition. That's because in any vector space $E$ over $GF(3)$, for every $e\in E$, it must be $e+e+e=0$ (because it's the same as $3e$, and $3=0$ in that field). That doesn't happen in $GF(5)$.

2- The argument I used before shows that it is necessary that $GF(p) $ and $GF(q) $ have the same characteristic. The characteristic of a field is the smallest integer $n$ such that the unity summed with itself $n$ times is zero: $1+1+\dots1=0$, in that field.

The characteristic of a field with $p^n$ elements, with $p$ prime, is equal to $p$. So, it's necessary that $p$ and $q$ are powers of the same prime number: the characteristic of both fields.

There is another necessary condition: take $q= t^k$, $p=t^l$. If $GF(p)$ was a vector space over $GF(q)$ say, of finite dimension $n$, then $p= q^n$, and that can only happen when $t^{kn}= t^l$, that is, when $l$ is a multiple of $k$.

3- This question only makes sense when the three fields are vector spaces over the same field $GF(r)$. And it's not clear what do you mean by "some field is a subspace of another field". Are you assuming that these subfields are included one into the other? In what way? Perhaps you want to know when one is a field extension of the other?

Compacto
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  • Oh, I'm sorry, kind of new to this community so I didn't know those questions are too many ... Anyway, thanks for your answer! I've more or less got the idea for the first two questions. And as for your question on Q3, to be honest I am kind of new to this topic so I don't really understand what that is, and I'm just trying to generalize the first question – pokemon Feb 23 '22 at 13:10
  • Never ask a question that you don't understand fully. It doesn't make any sense for $X$ to be a subspace of $Y$ when it's not clear if $X$ is a subset of $Y$. Never try to generalize something you don't understand in the first place. – Compacto Feb 23 '22 at 13:55