non-isomorphic completions of
No field of the -adic numbers (-adic rationals (http://planetmath.org/PAdicIntegers)) is isomorphic with the field of the real numbers.
Proof. Let’s assume the existence of a field isomorphism for some positive prime number
. If we denote , then we obtain
because the isomorphism maps the elements of the prime subfield on themselves. Thus, if is the normed -adic valuation
(http://planetmath.org/PAdicValuation) of and of , we get
which value is an irrational number as a square root of a non-square (http://planetmath.org/SquareRootOf2IsIrrationalProof) rational. But this is impossible, since the value group of the completion must be the same as the value group which consists of all integer powers of . So we conclude that there can not exist such an isomorphism.