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Exercise 7.6
Let be finite fields with . Show that if is not a square in , it is not a square in .
Answers
Proof. Let . Then
If the characteristic of is 2, then for some integer , and for all , . Therefore all elements in (or ) are squares. We can now suppose that the characteristic of is not 2, so that in .
As is not a square in , (Prop. 7.1.2). From , we deduce that . Then
since is always odd.
: this implies (Prop. 7.1.2) that is not a square in . □