A Field Guide to Algebra

This is a small book on algebra where the stress is laid on the structure of ?elds, hence its title. Youwillhearaboutequations,bothpolynomialanddi?erential,andabout the algebraic structure of their solutions. For example, it has been known for centuries how to explicitely solve polynomial equations of degree 2 (Baby- nians, many centuries ago), 3 (Scipione del Ferro, Tartaglia, Cardan, around th 1500a.d.), and even 4 (Cardan, Ferrari,xvi century), using only algebraic operations and radicals (nt