# characteristic

> in a field or a ring, the smallest positive integer, if any, such that the sum of n ones equals 0; zero otherwise

**Wikidata**: [Q836088](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q836088)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristic_(algebra))  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/characteristic


## References

1. Freebase Data Dumps. 2013