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Maximal Ideal




Maximal ideals are important because the Quotient Ring s of maximal ideals are Simple Ring s and in the special case of Unital Commutative Ring s even Field s. Rings which contain only one maximal ideal are called Local Ring s


DEFINITION


Given a ring ''R'' and a proper ideal ''I'' of ''R'' (that is ''I'' ≠ ''R''), ''I'' is called maximal ideal in ''R'' if there exists no other proper ideal ''J'' of ''R'' so that ''I'' ⊂ ''J''-

An ideal S of a ring such that S≠ R is called a maximal ideal of R if there exists no proper ideals of R contaning S.


EXAMPLES


  • In the ring Z of integers the maximal ideals are the Principal Ideal s generated by a prime number.



PROPERTIES


  • Every maximal ideal is a Prime Ideal . Maximal ideals can be directly characterized to be those ideals which are subsets of only two ideals: the improper ideal and the maximal ideal itself.


  • Krull's Theorem (1929): Every commutative ring with 1 has a maximal ideal.


  • In a lattice diagram, maximal ideals are always directly joined to the biggest containing ring, as follows from the prime property.