Definition (multilinear function):
Let be a ring, and let be -modules. Then the set of -multilinear functions from to is the set
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Proposition (equivalent definition of tensor product of free modules using multilinear functions):
Let be a ring, and let be free, finitely generated -modules. Then if we alternatively define
- ,
and let the elementary tensors be , then the from this definition satisfies the same universal property as the usual tensor product . In particular, the two tensor products are canonically isomorphic.
Proof: For , let be a basis of , where is the respective finite index set. Given any -module and any multilinear map , we want a unique linear function such that , where is the map that sends a tuple to the respective elementary tensor.