Distributivity in Rings
Distributivity is most commonly found in rings and distributive lattices.
A ring has two binary operations (commonly called "+" and "*"), and one of the requirements of a ring is that * must distribute over +. Most kinds of numbers (example 1) and matrices (example 4) form rings. A lattice is another kind of algebraic structure with two binary operations, ∧ and ∨. If either of these operations (say ∧) distributes over the other (∨), then ∨ must also distribute over ∧, and the lattice is called distributive. See also the article on distributivity (order theory).
Examples 4 and 5 are Boolean algebras, which can be interpreted either as a special kind of ring (a Boolean ring) or a special kind of distributive lattice (a Boolean lattice). Each interpretation is responsible for different distributive laws in the Boolean algebra. Examples 6 and 7 are distributive lattices which are not Boolean algebras.
Failure of one of the two distributive laws brings about near-rings and near-fields instead of rings and division rings respectively. The operations are usually configured to have the near-ring or near-field distributive on the right but not on the left.
Rings and distributive lattices are both special kinds of rigs, certain generalizations of rings. Those numbers in example 1 that don't form rings at least form rigs. Near-rigs are a further generalization of rigs that are left-distributive but not right-distributive; example 2 is a near-rig.
Read more about this topic: Distributive Property
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