Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-algebra-analysis-and-differential-equations-1-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2004/algebra/3/i/solution

A ring is a set with an abelian-group addition, associative multiplication and both distributive laws; here we use rings with multiplicative identity. A field is a nonzero commutative ring in which every nonzero element has a multiplicative inverse.
The positive integers form neither a ring nor a field. They do not contain an additive identity zero, and they also lack additive inverses.

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