Artin's problem for skew field extensions

Abstract

For a commutative field extension, L ⊃ K, it is clear that a left basis of L over K; is also a right basis of L over K; however, for an extension of skew fields, this may easily fail, though it is hard to determine whether the right and left dimension may be different. Cohn ([4], ch. 5), however, was able to find extensions of skew fields such that the left and right dimensions were an arbitrary pair of cardinals subject only to the restrictions that neither were 1 and at least one of them was infinite. In this paper, I shall present a new approach that allows us to construct extensions of skew fields such that the left and right dimensions are arbitrary integers not equal to 1. In a subsequent paper, [7], I shall present related results and consequences; in particular, there is a construction of a hereditary artinian ring of finite representation type corresponding to the Coxeter diagram I2(5) answering the question raised by Dowbor, Ringel and Simson[5].