In mathematics, the term primitive element can mean:
- Primitive root modulo n, in number theory
- Primitive element (field theory), an element that generates a given field extension
- Primitive element (finite field), an element that generates the multiplicative group of a finite field
- in a Hopf algebra, an element X on which the comultiplication Δ has the value Δ(X) = X⊗1 + 1⊗X
- in a free group, an element of a free generating set
Famous quotes containing the words primitive and/or element:
“The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no doubt, of the frequent fires in Maine, of which we hear so much on smoky days in Massachusetts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory—of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)