Talk:Alonzo Church

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Quote:

"His discovery of the lambda calculus."

Is "discovery" the right word to say? Talam 14:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• JA: Yes, that is a common mathematical idiom. Jon Awbrey 14:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Some would say that "invention" is more appropriate.--SallySprite 22:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This brings us to the old problem of Realism which raises the question, "Did Lambda Calculus always have a reality in the external world and was only brought to our notice recently by Church's writings?" According to Mathematical Realists, Lambda Calculus has always existed in the world apart from human brains. Church's brain discovered it and consequently it became a part of the (Ideal, subjective), internal operations of many human brains. In a nutshell, is it real/objective/external or ideal/subjective/internal?Lestrade (talk) 03:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)lestrade

Not to interrupt the display of pretentiousness or anything, but lambda calculus was developed as a notation for talking about mathematical objects (in particular, functions). If there is an issue of realism here, it is a rather implausible realism about formal languages, not a traditional form of realism about mathematical objects. 145.18.22.149 (talk) 15:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Best known for?

The Introduction mentions the Church-Rosser Theorem (counfluence of lambda calculus) among his major achievements, but doesn't mention Church's Theorem (undecidability of predicate logic); in the main text the situation is the opposite. I would say the Introduction ought to be brought in line with the main text in this regard. Predicate logic is the _lingua franca_ of symbolic logic, whereas the lambda calculus -- while by no means unimportant -- is but one of many equally well-known theoretical models of computation. Nastor (talk) 14:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Church's theorem

Is it correct for Church's theorem to link to the Entscheidungsproblem, since Church's theorem relates to the undecidability of the Entscheidungsproblem? Does Church's theorem warrant a separate article? Froskoy (talk) 08:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The Entscheidungsproblem isn't undecidable (that's the wrong word) it is unsolvable.

I've fixed that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThePinkGerbil (talk • contribs) 17:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Alonzo

Alonzo and his uncle might have been named after the small town in Kentucky, in America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.51.140 (talk) 09:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Berlinski

What reason is there to think that *the linked to* David Berlinski was a student of Church's? 81.135.40.150 (talk) 13:55, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Both of them were at Princeton University during the same time period, and I don't think there are any other notable people with that name. Partofthemachine (talk) 02:45, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

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Non-referring reference

There is a reference: 'see e.g. Church 1970', but who knows what it is!? There are five of his works mentioned:

Alonzo Church, Introduction to Mathematical Logic (ISBN 978-0-691-02906-1)[15]

Alonzo Church, The Calculi of Lambda-Conversion (ISBN 978-0-691-08394-0)[16]

Alonzo Church, A Bibliography of Symbolic Logic, 1666–1935 (ISBN 978-0-8218-0084-3)

Alonzo Church interviewed by William Aspray on 17 May 1984. The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s: An Oral-History Project, transcript number 5.

Church, A. (1950). "On Carnap's Analysis of Statements of Assertion and Belief". The Journal of Symbolic Logic. 10 (5): 97–99. doi:10.2307/3326684. JSTOR 3326684.

and not one of them was published in 1970. ThePinkGerbil (talk) 17:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Just mentioning that, other than articles that were originally published in Encyclopedia Britannica, there is also no published work for the year 1970 listed in the contents of:

• Tyler Burge and Herbert Enderton (eds.), The Collected Works of Alonzo Church (2019) (ISBN 978-0-262-02564-5)

The footnote on page 692 of The Collected Works describes those articles thus [bold and italics are as they appear in the original]:

Originally published in Encyclopedia Britannica, from 1956 until 1972, with periodic revisions. The articles Concrete and Mathematical Induction were added in 1967. The text here follows the 1972 version. © 1972, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Reprinted with permission from Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th edition.

Based on the date range alone, I suppose one of these articles could be a candidate for the mystery reference for the statement that Church "also worked on philosophy of language (see e.g. Church 1970)". The articles titles are:

• "AXIOM"
• "CATEGORICAL"
• "CONCRETE (IN PHILOSOPHY)"
• "CONNOTATION"
• "CONVERSION (IN LOGIC AND MATHEMATICS)"
• "DEFINITION"
• "DENOTATION"
• "DILEMMA"
• "LOGIC"
• "MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION"
• "NAME (IN LOGIC)"
• "POSTULATE"
• "PROPOSITION"
• "SORITES"
• "TAUTOLOGY"
• "TERM"
• "THOUGHT, LAWS OF"

Of those, "CONNOTATION" and "DEFINITION" (maybe others, too) discuss natural language, but I do not know whether either qualifies as "work on philosophy of language". Perhaps an expert could take a look and comment?

Asalewski (talk) 22:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by 97198 (talk) 09:41, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Haskell Curry said that Alonzo Church's textbook Introduction to Mathematical Logic was "written with the meticulous precision which characterizes the author's work generally"? Source: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Church/
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: I just think Church is someone who deserves more appreciation.

Created by Partofthemachine (talk). Self-nominated at 06:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC).

• @Partofthemachine: I agree, but this article does not appear to meet DYK criteria. It is not new, has not been expanded fivefold recently and is not a GA. Do you intend to bring it up to GA status? Srnec (talk) 21:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Picture caption

Giving Alonzo's name and dates isn't really a great caption for the main photo, doesn't give context. Can anyone find the date it was taken? It should read something like 'Church in 1963', for example. CoyotesKenning (talk) 23:34, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

"Alozno Church" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Alozno Church has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 4 § Alozno Church until a consensus is reached. Bearcat (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)