Rng (algebra)

A rng has an abelian group under addition, an associative multiplication, and the distributive property; a multiplicative identity element is not required. Every ring under this wiki's unital convention is a rng. A nonunital ring may happen to have an identity: the terminology removes an axiom rather than imposing the absence of an identity. For example, the even integers with their usual operations have no multiplicative identity.

Up to an operation-preserving bijection, there are two rngs with two elements. Write the elements as $0,u$. The additive abelian group must satisfy $u+u=0$. The distributive property forces all products involving zero to vanish, leaving only the choice $u^2=0$ or $u^2=u$. The first gives a zero-multiplication rng; the second gives the prime field ${\mathbb{F}}_2$, with identity $u$. Both satisfy the axioms, and they are not isomorphic because an isomorphism must send the unique nonzero element to the unique nonzero element and preserve its square. In particular, there is just one unital ring with two elements.

Any abelian group becomes a nonunital ring by declaring every product zero. Associativity and the distributive property hold because both sides are zero. When the group has more than one element, no multiplicative identity element exists: an identity would have to satisfy $ex=x$, whereas every such product is zero. This differs from the zero ring, which has just one element.

The characteristic of a rng is the least positive integer annihilating every element of its additive abelian group, or zero if no such integer exists. In a unital ring this equals the characteristic of a ring: $n1=0$ implies $nr=(n1)r=0$, and annihilating every element in particular annihilates $1$. In a finite rng it is the exponent of a finite group of the additive group.