abstract-algebrafield-theoryring-theory
The ring axioms require that addition is commutative, addition and multiplication are associative, multiplication distributes over addition.
A field can be thought of as two groups with extra distributivity law.
A ring is more complex: with abelian group and a semigroup with extra distributivity law.
Is a ring a more basic structure than a field, or vice versa? What's the relation between them? What's the background why people study them?
Let $A$ be a finite commutative ring (not assumed to contain an identity). Suppose that $a \in A$ is not a zero-divisor. Then multiplication by $a$ induces an injection from $A$ to itself, which is necessarily a bijection, since $A$ is finite. Thus multiplication by $a$ is a permutation of the finite set $A$, and hence multiplication by some power of $a$ (which by associativity is the same as some power of multiplication by $a$) is the identity permutation of $A$. That is, some power of $a$ acts as the identity under multiplication, which is to say, it is a (and hence the) multiplicative identity of $A$.
In short, if a finite commutative ring $A$ contains a non-zero divisor, then it necessarily contains an identity, and every non-zero divisor in $A$ is a unit.
As mentioned in the comments, the term 'ring' came from Hilbert (previous question). Bill's answer there is excellent.
Fields are a bit funnier. It started with Dedekind using the word "Zahlenkörper" (body of numbers). In a supplement that he wrote to Dirichlet's Vorlesungenueber Zahlentheorie, he used that word (looking for an image for that) instead of 'rationally known quantities.' It was Moore who coined 'field' - in 1893, he wrote on Galois fields for the Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society. However, he was always careful to mention 'fields of order' something, as field had the additional meaning at the time of neighborhood (as we understand it today).
I believe he used 'body of numbers' because they stay together just as a group does. But the transition to 'field' is a harder one to understand. Perhaps he meant it as an extension of the neighborhood-field idea - these numbers stayed in a certain neighborhood of a set of numbers in the sense that they were only a couple of powers of s away (referring to his passage below). Or perhaps he meant in to be similar to a 'body', in the sense that they just stay together.
In any case, if there were a strong, direct metaphor for 'ring' or 'field,' it is no longer readily apparent. The origins of the terms are difficult to track and harder to understand completely, and different people used the same terms in different ways. It is even possible that little thought was given to the naming of these things - it is most often hard to judge the importance of something new. Reaching for the term 'body' or 'field' because it fits and doesn't already mean something else might be the real origin.
Here is part of his piece on Galois fields for the Bulletin of the NYMS
Later, Edward Huntington wrote about the development of the theory of fields (it's funny how today we think of fields and groups as being basic, though groups are far older)
Here is an excerpt from Huntington's piece:
Huntington:
with footnote - indicating the well-understood meaning of field today:
Best Answer
A ring is an ordered triple, $(R,+,\times)$, where $R$ is a set, $+\colon R\times R\to R$ and $\times\colon R\times R\to R$ are binary operations (usually written in in-fix notation) such that:
1-4 tell us that $(R,+)$ is an abelian group. 5 tells us that $(R,\times)$ is a semigroup. 6 and 7 are the two distributive laws that you mention.
We also have the following items:
a. There exists $1\in R$ such that $1\times a = a\times 1 = a$ for all $a\in R$.
b. $1\neq 0$.
c. For every $a\in R$, $a\neq 0$, there exists $b\in R$ such that $a\times b = b\times a = 1$.
d. $\times$ is commutative.
A ring that satisfies (1)-(7)+(a) is said to be a "ring with unity." Clearly, every ring with unity is also a ring; it takes "more" to be a ring with unity than to be a ring.
A ring that satisfies (1)-(7)+(a,b,c) is said to be a division ring. Again, eveyr division ring is a ring, and it takes "more" to be a division ring than to be a ring. (5)+(a)+(b)+(c) tell us that $(R-\{0\},\times)$ is a group (note that we need to remove $0$ because (c) specifies nonzero, and we need (b) to ensure we are left with something).
A ring that satisfies (1)-(7)+(a,b,c,d) is a field. Again, every field is a ring.
We do indeed have that $(R,+)$ is an abelian group, that $(R-\{0\},\times)$ is an abelian group, and that these structures "mesh together" via (6) and (7). In a ring, we have that $(R,+)$ is an abelian group, that $(R,\times)$ is a semigroup (or better yet, a semigroup with $0$), and that the two structures "mesh well".
We have that every field is a division ring, but there are division rings that are not fields (e.g., the quaternions); every division ring is a ring with unity, but there are rings with unity that are not division rings (e.g., the integers if you want commutativity, the $n\times n$ matrices with coefficients in, say, $\mathbb{R}$, $n\gt 1$, if you want noncommutativity); every ring with unity is a ring, but there are rings that are not rings with unity (strictly upper triangular $3\times 3$ matrices with coefficients in $\mathbb{R}$, for instance). So $$\text{Fields}\subsetneq \text{Division rings}\subsetneq \text{Rings with unity} \subsetneq \text{Rings}$$ and $$\text{Fields}\subsetneq \text{Commutative rings with unity}\subsetneq \text{Commutative rings}\subsetneq \text{Rings}.$$