Near-field (mathematics) - History and Applications

History and Applications

The concept of a near-field was first introduced by Leonard Dickson in 1905. He took division rings and modified their multiplication, while leaving addition as it was, and thus produced the first known examples of near-fields that were not division rings. The near-fields produced by this method are known as Dickson near-fields; the near-field of order 9 given above is a Dickson near-field. Hans Zassenhaus proved that all but 7 finite near-fields are either division rings or Dickson near-fields.

The earliest application of the concept of near-field was in the study of geometries, such as projective geometries. Many projective geometries can be defined in terms of a coordinate system over a division ring, but others can't. It was found that by allowing coordinates from any near-ring the range of geometries which could be coordinatized was extended. For example, Marshall Hall used the near-field of order 9 given above to produce a Hall plane, the first of a sequence of such planes based on Dickson near-fields of order the square of a prime. In 1971 T. G. Room and P.B. Kirkpatrick provided an alternative development.

There are numerous other applications, mostly to geometry. A more recent application of near-fields is in the construction of ciphers for data-encryption, such as Hill ciphers.