Group
A group is defined to be a monoid in which every element is invertible. Hence a group G is a set G together with a binary operation GxG->G, written (a,b)->ab, such that this
(i) operation is associative;
(ii) there is an element uEG with ua=a=au for all aEG;
(iii) for this element u, there is to each element aEG an element a'EG with aa'=u=a'a.
Ring
A ring R=(R,+,.,1) is a set R with two binary operations, addition and multiplication, and a nullary operation, “select 1”, such that
- (R,+) is an abelian group under addition;
- (R,.,1) is a monoid under multiplication;
- Multiplication is distributive (on both sides) over addition.
The last requirement means that all triples of elements a,b,c in R satisfy the identities
a(b+c)=ab+ac, (a+b)c=ac+bc