Finite field arithmetic
arithmetic in a field with a finite number of elements
In mathematics, finite field arithmetic is arithmetic in a finite field (a field containing a finite number of elements) contrary to arithmetic in a field with an infinite number of elements, like the field of rational numbers.
There are infinitely many different finite fields. Their number of elements is necessarily of the form pn where p is a prime number and n is a positive integer, and two finite fields of the same size are isomorphic. The prime p is called the characteristic of the field, and the positive integer n is called the dimension of the field over its prime field.
Finite fields are used in a variety of applications, including in classical coding theory in linear block codes such as BCH codes and Reed–Solomon error correction, in cryptography algorithms such as the Rijndael (AES) encryption algorithm, in tournament scheduling, and in the design of experiments.
Effective polynomial representation
The finite field with pn elements is denoted GF(pn) and is also called the Galois field of order pn, in honor of the founder of finite field theory, Évariste Galois. GF(p), where p is a prime number, is simply the ring of integers modulo p. That is, one can perform operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication) using the usual operation on integers, followed by reduction modulo p. For instance, in GF(5), 4 + 3 = 7 is reduced to 2 modulo 5. Division is multiplication by the inverse modulo p, which may be computed using the extended Euclidean algorithm.
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