Thanks so much for that analogy and explanation! It certainly made things a bit clearer. edit: I'm still a bit unclear on what it means to form a field. Texts

Thanks so much for that analogy and explanation! It certainly made things a bit clearer. edit: I'm still a bit unclear on what it means to form a field. Texts around this topic seem pretty dense and encyclopedic. Is there a straightforward explanation of what an algebraic field is?