[GAP Forum] what is the difference between Conway Polynomial and minimal polynomial?

[shengyu shen]

Dear all:

I am learning GAP, and I find that the Conway Polynomial is somewhat similar to minimal polynomial, because both will be used to construct the extension field.

So is there any difference?

Furthermore, the gap command  ConwayPolynomial( 2, 5 ) directly return a polynomial, but I think there may be many different minimal poly for the same p and n. So which one will be chosen to be ConwayPolynomial?


Shen