lambda calculus

English

Etymology

Coined by Alonzo Church after the use of the Greek letter lambda (λ) as the basic abstraction operator in the calculus.

Noun

lambda calculus (countable and uncountable, plural lambda calculi)

1. (computing theory) 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.
   • 2009 March 2, John C. Baez with Mike Stay, “Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎^[1], page 50:

     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.

Meronyms

• alpha conversion
• beta reduction
• eta conversion
• lambda term

Derived terms

• simply typed lambda calculus
• typed lambda calculus

Related terms

• calculus
• lambda
• lambda abstraction
• lambda expression

Translations

algebraic system

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: càlcul lambda m
• Czech: lambda kalkul m
• Finnish: lambdakalkyyli (fi)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• Greek: λογισμός λάμδα m (logismós lámda)
• Icelandic: lambda-reikningur m
• Italian: calcolo lambda m
• Japanese: λ計算, ラムダ計算 (ramuda keisan)
• Macedonian: ламбда-пресметка f (lambda-presmetka)
• Polish: rachunek lambda m
• Romanian: calcul lambda n
• Russian: лямбда-исчисление (ru) n (ljambda-isčislenije)
• Serbo-Croatian: lambda račun m
• Swedish: lambdakalkyl c

See also

• combinator
• functionally complete
• recursive function
• Turing machine