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Looking at prime field, I notice that ℚ is not listed as an example. Is that not usually considered a prime field?
If the prime fields are to be considered a weakly initial set for the category of fields (as mentioned at field), then it needs to be included. I think we can also describe a prime field as a field admitting an epi from the initial object ℤ in the category of commutative rings. Or, as a residue field of a localization of ℤ with respect to a prime ideal (the case of ℚ corresponding to the zero ideal being a prime ideal).
Lang [Algebra, 3rd ed.] writes:
If K is a field, then K has characteristic 0 or p>0. In the first case, K contains as a subfield an isomorphic image of the rational numbers, and in the second case, it contains an isomorphic image of 𝔽p. In either case, this subfield will be called the prime field (contained in K).
So it appears to me that ℚ is supposed to be a prime field.
I thought it was too.
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