A projective resolution of a module over a unit ring
is an exact sequence
in which each
is a projective module (Brown 1982). The projective dimension is the least length
of such a resolution, allowing infinity. Applying a covariant additive
functor from the category of
-modules to an Abelian
category to a projective resolution provides a way to compute its left derived
functors. For example,
is a projective resolution
over
for every integer
.