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Exercise 7.7
Generalize Exercise 6 by showing that if is not a square in , it is not a square in any extension of odd degree and is a square in every extension of even degree.
Answers
Proof. Write , and .
As is not a square in , the characteristic of is not 2 (see Ex.7.6), and . Since , .
If is odd, , thus , and consequently is not a square in .
If is even, as is odd ( ), , thus , so is a square in . □