Let be a field extension of of odd degree. Show that .
Solutions
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Let be an element of , and let’s show that . Consider the field . We have the tower of extensions:
By the Tower Law, we have that:
but since is supposed to be of odd degree, by definition, is odd, so both factors and are odd.
Now let be the minimal polynomial of over . Its degree is equal to . In other words, is a polynomial of odd degree. According to a corollary of the Intermediate Value Theorem, this means that admits a real root , hence it is divisible by in . But it was supposed to be irreducible. The only option is that , and so , meaning that is a real number.
