RINGS AND FIELDS, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY, FALL 2014

NATHAN ILTEN

Univariate Polynomials Over Q

This should all seem very familiar from school, but wed like to put it on a more
solid mathematical footing!
Recall that Q is the set of rational numbers, i.e. equivalence classes of pairs (a, b)
Z2 , b 6= 0 where (a, b) (a , b ) iff ab = a b. We think of a as the numerator, b the
denominator. Addition and multiplication are as defined previously . . . Important:
for any nonzero rational number x QQ, there exists an element y such that
xy = 1 = (1, 1). Indeed, if x is represented by (a, b), take y = (b, a). We denote
such y by x1 .
Definition 1. The
consists of polynomials in x with coefficients in Q, that
P set Q[x]
i
is, formal sums i=0 ai x where ai Q, and ai = 0 for all but finitely many indices i.
Here xi is simply a formal symbol which is being used to keep track of the coefficients
ai .
Since writing infinite sums is quite tedious, we will (almost always) omit terms from
the sum whose coefficients equal zero.
Example 1. 5x2 + 7x3 + 27x5 Q[x] is the same polynomial as 0x0 + 0x1 + 5x2 +
7x3 + 0x4 + 27x5 + 0x6 + 0x7 + . . ..
Remark 1. We can replace the formal symbol x by any other formal symbol, e.g.
Q[y] consists of finite formal sums a0 y 0 + a1 y 1 + . . . + . . .
We can define some natural binary operations on Q[x] by using our binary operations
on Q:
Addition:
X
i

ai xi +

bi xi =

(ai + bi )xi .

Since addition in Q is associative and commutative, it is obvious that addition in Q[x] is as well!
1

NATHAN ILTEN

Multiplication:
X
i

ai xi

X
i

bi xi =

X X

ai bj xn

i,j
i+j=n

Multiplication is obviously commutative. With a little work, you can show

that it is associative, and distributive with respect to addition; these are
good exercises to do at home!
Example 2.
x2 + 5x7 + 6x2 2x3 = 7x2 2x3 + 5x7
(x + x2 ) (5x2 + 7x3 ) = 5x3 + 12x4 + 7x5
P
Definition 2. The degree of a non-zero polynomial f Q[x], f = i ai xi is the
largest i Z0 such that ai 6= 0. We denote the degree of f by deg f . This gives a
map
Q[x] \ {0} Z0
f 7 deg f
The leading coefficient of a polynomial ad xd + . . . + a0 x0 of degree d is the coefficient
ad Q.
Other important properties of Q[x] (left as an exercise):

Zero product property: f, g Q[x], f g = 0 = f = 0 or g = 0.

deg(f g) = deg(f ) + deg(g).
deg(f + g) max{deg f, deg g} with strict inequality if deg f 6= deg g.
And other great stuff . . .

Theorem 1 (Division Theorem for Q[x]). Consider f, g Q[x], g 6= 0. Then there

exists unique q, r Q[x] with either r = 0, or else deg r < deg g.
This should remind you very much of the division theorem for Z, where the role of
absolute value has now been replaced by degree!
Proof. First we prove the existence of q, r. Note that if deg g = 0, then g = a0 has a
1
multiplicative inverse a1
0 , and we can take q = a0 f , r = 0, and we are done. So we
now assume that deg g > 0, and induct on the degree of f . If deg f < deg g, we are
done by taking q = 0 and r = f . Suppose instead that deg f deg g, and let ad be
deg f deg g
the leading coefficient of g. Then f = f a1
g has degree smaller than
d x

f (the leading coefficients cancel). By induction, we may assume that f = q g + r

where r = 0 or deg r < deg g. Hence,
deg f deg g
deg f deg g
f = f + a1
g = q g + r + a1
g
d x
d x
deg f deg g
so q = q + a1
and r = r do the trick.
d x

RINGS AND FIELDS, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY, FALL 2014

For the uniqueness of q and r, assume that we have f = qg + r = q g + r . Then

r r = g(q q). If this is nonzero, then the degree of the left hand side is less
than the degree of g, and the degree of the right hand side is at least the degree of
g, a contradiction. Hence, r = r , and by the zero product property, q = q .