Past exam of the rings and modules course of the University of Oxford 2017 1 b vi Solution 2026-10-31
Under the unital ring convention used elsewhere in this wiki, no such pair exists. In a two-element ring the elements are and . Additive cancellation forces , and the identity axiom forces . The distributive property forces products involving zero to vanish. Every operation is therefore determined, giving the prime field as the unique possibility up to ring isomorphism.
If the word ring allows a nonunital ring, there are instead two non-isomorphic examples: and the zero-multiplication rng on the additive group . In the second example the unique nonzero element satisfies and ; every product is zero, so associativity and both distributive laws hold. An isomorphism would have to send to because it preserves zero and is bijective, but then it would send to both and , which is impossible. These exhaust the rngs with two elements, since can only be or . Specifying the identity convention is essential for this part.
Rng with two elements 2026-10-31
Up to an operation-preserving bijection, there are two rngs with two elements. Write the elements as . The additive abelian group must satisfy . The distributive property forces all products involving zero to vanish, leaving only the choice or . The first gives a zero-multiplication rng; the second gives the prime field , with identity . 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.