lambda calculus
nounEtymology Coined by Alonzo Church after the use of the Greek letter lambda (λ) as the basic abstraction operator in the calculus.
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Computing, Computing theory, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Any of a family of functionally complete algebraic systems in which lambda expressions are evaluated according to a fixed set of rules to produce values, which may themselves be lambda expressions.
- In the 1930s, while Turing was developing what are now called ‘Turing machines’ as a model for computation, Church and his student Kleene were developing a different model, called the ‘lambda calculus’ [29, 63]. While a Turing machine can be seen as an idealized, simplified model of computer hardware, the lambda calculus is more like a simple model of software.2009 February 3, John C. Baez with Mike Stay, “Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 50:
- Derived terms
- simply typed lambda calculus, typed lambda calculus
- Related terms
- calculus, lambda, lambda abstraction, lambda expression, combinator, functionally complete, recursive function, Turing machine
- Meronyms
- alpha conversion, beta reduction, eta conversion, lambda term