AES encryption, what are public and private keys?

Question

In AES encryption (.net framework), how are the public and private keys used?

Are the public and private keys combined to form a full key, and then the algorithm use

Answer 1

In the simplest form:

AES is a symetric algorithm, it uses the same key for encryption and decryption.So tat whoever has the key can read your message.

The private and public key is for Asymetric alogorithms like RSA, normally people use public key to encrypt and private key to decrypt( only HMAC or MAC will use private key to encrypt, and public key to decrypt).The public key is known to everyone, the private key is only known to yourself, so no one can read the message sent to you.