Author(s)

Saviour Chibeti, Iness Kyapwanyama

Economics Department, University of Lusaka, Lusaka, Zambia.

Matrix rings are prominent in abstract algebra. In this paper we give an overview of the theory of matrix near-rings. A near-ring differs from a ring in that it does not need to be abelian and one of the distributive laws does not hold in general. We introduce two ways in which matrix near-rings can be defined and discuss the structure of each. One is as given by Beildeman and the other is as defined by Meldrum. Beildeman defined his matrix near-rings as normal arrays under the operation of matrix multiplication and addition. He showed that we have a matrix near-ring over a near-ring if, and only if, it is a ring. In this case it is not possible to obtain a matrix near-ring from a proper near-ring. Later, in 1986, Meldrum and van der Walt defined matrix near-rings over a near-ring as mappings from the direct sum of n copies of the additive group of the near-ring to itself. In this case it can be shown that a proper near-ring is obtained. We prove several properties, introduce some special matrices and show that a matrix notation can be introduced to make calculations easier, provided that n is small.

Near-Rings, First Near-Ring Isomorphism, Zero Symmetric Near-Ring, Near-Ring Module and Matrix Near-Rings

Chibeti, S. and Kyapwanyama, I. (2023) An Introduction to the Theory of Matrix Near-Rings. Advances in Pure Mathematics, 13, 71-95. doi: 10.4236/apm.2023.132004.