 There is an analogue of the prime number theorem that describes the "distribution" of irreducible polynomials over a finite field; the form it takes is strikingly similar to the case of the classical prime number theorem.To state it precisely, let be the finite field with elements, for some fixed , and let be the number of monic "irreducible" polynomials over whose degree is equal to .That is, we are looking at polynomials with coefficients chosen from , which cannot be written as products of polynomials of smaller degree.