Irreducibility of Affine Varieties
摘要
When studying the integers, a key tool is the existence of prime factorizations. There is an analogue when studying polynomials (factorization into irreducibles) or when studying finite abelian groups (decomposition as a direct sum of cyclic groups). These settings all demonstrate the way in which one can understand a class of mathematical objects by specifying the atomic, indecomposable objects as well as how a general object decomposes into its atomic pieces.