Primitive Element

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)

    “The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematising the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.”
    —J.G. (James Graham)