Transcendental extension

In mathematics, a transcendental extension is a field extension such that there exists an element in the field that is transcendental over the field ; that is, an element that is not a root of any univariate polynomial with coefficients in . In other words, a transcendental extension is a field extension that is not algebraic. For example, are both transcendental extensions of A transcendence basis of a field extension (or a transcendence basis of over ) is a maximal algebraically independent subset of over Transcendence bases share many properties with bases of vector spaces. In particular, all transcendence bases of a field extension have the same cardinality, called the transcendence degree of the extension. Thus, a field extension is a transcendental extension if and only if its transcendence degree is positive. Transcendental extensions are widely used in algebraic geometry. For example, the dimension of an algebraic variety is the transcendence degree of its function field. Also, global function fields are transcendental extensions of degree one of a finite field, and play in number theory in positive characteristic a role that is very similar to the role of algebraic number fields in characteristic zero. Zorn's lemma shows there exists a maximal linearly independent subset of a vector space (i.e., a basis). A similar argument with Zorn's lemma shows that, given a field extension L / K, there exists a maximal algebraically independent subset of L over K. It is then called a transcendence basis. By maximality, an algebraically independent subset S of L over K is a transcendence basis if and only if L is an algebraic extension of K(S), the field obtained by adjoining the elements of S to K. The exchange lemma (a version for algebraically independent sets) implies that if S, S' are transcendence bases, then S and S' have the same cardinality. Then the common cardinality of transcendence bases is called the transcendence degree of L over K and is denoted as or .