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It is natural to ask whether or not some field is contained in a larger field. We think of the rational numbers, which reside inside the real numbers, while in turn, the real numbers live inside the complex numbers. We can also study the fields between and and inquire as to the nature of these fields.
More specifically if we are given a field and a polynomial we can ask whether or not we can find a field containing such that factors into linear factors over For example, if we consider the polynomial
in then factors as However, both of these factors are irreducible in If we wish to find a zero of we must go to a larger field. Certainly the field of real numbers will work, since
It is possible to find a smaller field in which has a zero, namely
We wish to be able to compute and study such fields for arbitrary polynomials over a field